


Curtain Call

by helloarmchairphilosopher



Series: Curtain Call [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, Genocide, Harm to Children, Holocaust, Murder, Recovery, Tarsus IV, Violence, children committing harm, did I mention this was not a happy fic?, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 12:05:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3326672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloarmchairphilosopher/pseuds/helloarmchairphilosopher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There were some survivors of Kodos’ massacre and genocide.” Next slide, image of a child on a biobed being healed by a Starfleet-garbed nurse. “Most of the 10,000 or so survivors of Tarsus IV were young adults. Several children were found who had lied about their age to survive or who had hidden in basements or walls. However, the majority were Earth men between the ages of 16 and 35. Almost everyone older had died by phaser or starvation, and almost everyone younger as well. Many women did not survive, as Kodos had decreed they were to receive half rations.”<br/>Next slide. Kodos’ inner rooms. His crumpled dead body visible behind his monstrous desk.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tarsus IV leaves its scars, and recovery takes time for those who were lucky, or unlucky, enough to survive horrors. James Kirk is one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I do not have any ownership of any part of Star Trek. This story is based on the J.J. Abrams 2009 and 2013 films as well as the 1966 The Original Series episode “The Conscience of the King.” Introductory quotes are things I have found in my own research.   
> Warning: This work of fiction is rated M for violence. Do not read if you are sensitive to that sort of thing. It's going to get very ugly. I will post a short list of triggers for the whole fic in the endnotes of this chapter, which hopefully encompasses most of them. Please, do not read this if it triggers you.
> 
> This fic was previously published under my author page on Fanfiction.net in December of 2013.

“I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.” ― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

o0o0o

A rather skinny blond teenager stepped off the shuttle. He carried only a rucksack and he was alone on the shuttle platform, alone in the sea of other people. He breathed the air of Tarsus IV. Under the reek of the rather old and ramshackle shuttle, so old it still burned fuel derived from crude oil and had that charred smell, the teen could smell the clean forest around him. He had been told to go to the main settlement on this small earth-colony planet, so here he was.

_I suppose it’s all I deserve after I drove Dad’s car off a cliff into a quarry._

The young man found a bench and sat down heavily. He had only a few clothes in the rucksack and only a little money and not even one book to his name. He had been left with a datapad, but there was nothing he wished to write down or find in it. His mother had confiscated his communicator when he stepped on the shuttle to Tarsus IV.

_I don’t want to hear one word from you for the whole year you will be off-planet with your aunt_ , he remembered her saying. _Maybe spending some time away from Earth will do you good, away from people who cut you slack because your father –_ And there he remembered his mother’s voice failing, and one last shove from her onto the shuttle.

Looking around, he didn’t see anything much different between this place and the one he’d left, except Riverside, Iowa had never had so many trees, and it had never smelled so clean and fresh to him. In the 2240s, it had been over four hundred years – since the 1840s – since that part of Iowa had been wild and untouched in a way he could tell this place still was.

He thought he might like it here. Final judgment would have to wait until he met his aunt, of course, but really, anyplace was better than Earth with his mother or stepfather. Anywhere.

Even here.

o0o0o

Cadet James Kirk swaggered into his military tactics class at Starfleet Academy. He was not hungover, for once, which was almost as remarkable as the fact that he was in class at all.

_What do I need to go to class for if I only show up to the tests and get full marks? Better to drink and have fun rather than sit here and listen to a stuffy professor who don’t know what he’s talking about._

That assessment fit far too many Starfleet instructors, Jim Kirk thought. These were the same sorts of people who were unamused by beaming incidents involving beagles, that one keg of Romulan ale rolling down a hill into an Admiral’s vintage car, and thought Jim’s reputation as a skirt chaser was actually deserved. Stuffy, ignorant, and self-absorbed.

_I’ve lived more of life than any of them and I’m only 22._

But Jim Kirk was in class. Bones, being in this class at a different time but in the same semester with the same instructor, had seen this lecture yesterday morning, and had said he needed someone he could talk to about it. So Jim actually showed up.

_A favor for a friend, I’ll do. Even if it means going to class._

The professor cleared his throat at the podium and began, “Good morning class.”

There was a murmur of “good mornings”.

“We are going to be spending this morning continuing our unit on the ethics and laws relating to military actions against civilians.”

Jim was starting to feel a bit green. _Dammit Bones!_

“For today’s example, we have the all too recent case of Tarsus IV.” The professor sounded bored. “Can anyone tell me something about what happened on that Earth colony in 2246?”

The cadet who _still_ wouldn’t tell Jim her first name raised her hand and was called upon. “A major crop failure led to the deaths of 4,000 people.”

“True, but not the whole story. Admittedly, that was all that was put into the major news networks at the time. Anyone else?”

_4,000 people dead in the capital alone, ten times more than that in the outlying areas. And crop failure only killed half of them, though that would have been bad enough._

Jim told himself to breathe. He could have a panic attack when he was back in his dorm room and his doctor roommate could watch him to make sure his airways didn’t close. It took every ounce of self-control to stay seated, not vomit, and even halfway look like he was paying attention.

The professor called on the person Jim had memorably dubbed Cupcake. He might actually have been named Hendorff. Jim really couldn’t care right now. “Governor Kodos took full military control of the colony and distributed food rations according to who he felt was most valuable to the survival of the colony.”

_Also true, but you have no idea what that actually looks like, when a eugenics-crazed madman decides that all nonhumans won’t eat, when women will eat half rations, when children will eat half rations if they eat at all, when the household of the governor eats and few others, when in order to get food one couldn’t deviate from one’s orders even a smidge._

Jim forced himself to breathe and not panic. The professor had accepted Cupcake’s answer and had said also that that wasn’t the whole story either.

“Anyone else?” The professor seemed disappointed when no one else had anything they wished to say. “All right, then I will have to continue the narration by myself.”

Jim nearly threw up when he saw the images the instructor had put on the screen at the front of the room. It was an image of Tarsus IV as the Starfleet forces had found it: a view of the governor’s house in the background, while in the foreground were ten to fifteen different humanoid bodies in various states of decomposition. All but the two in the immediate foreground were emaciated, so starved their ribs jutted like bird feet and their bellies had swollen in the last stages of malnutrition. The noted two were dressed in soldier’s uniforms, and they had the marks of death by phaser.

“This was how Starfleet found the capital of the colony late in the year 2246. There were many, many dead who simply lay in the streets where they had fallen. There were also a small number of soldiers who resisted Starfleet forces and had to be subdued by force.”

Next slide. An image of a Tarsus farm, burned. Skeletons could be seen of the family that had once occupied it. The evergreen trees in the foreground were missing all leaves and branches in reach.

 “In the spring of 2246, crop failure brought on by blight led to starvation. People had already eaten their winter food stores and with the failure of the next crop, the hunger began. By late summer people would eat anything they could find, including the evergreen branches, even including each other in some cases. Disease killed perhaps 1,000 people in the capital and at least 15,000 in the outlying areas and farming communities.”

Next slide. A firepit, one Jim recognized. Bones, burned and cooked, cracked for the marrow, on the stone hearth.

“Even in Kodos’ house, scenes like this were found. It seems the soldiers who seemed well-fed had been eating the dead and dying colonists. Such behavior was certainly not limited to soldiers, and was likely more common than any remaining evidence as found by Starfleet.”

Next slide. The capital’s arena and theater, and mustering point, from the outside looking so innocuous, even dirty. A building that looked as innocuous as a warehouse for grain and goods.

“In the early fall of 2246, of the original 45,000 or so colonists on Tarsus IV, between 25,000 and 30,000 people remained. All remaining food on the colonized planet was collected by Kodos’ soldiers to be distributed as rations, and all colonists were named, numbered, and listed so that proper rations could be assigned.”

Next slide. The arena from the inside. The sand on the floor had been brushed aside, showing bloodstains on the stone foundation. Phaser burns covered the inside walls.

“Not more than a month after the collection of remaining food, Kodos ordered all those whose, in his words, _useless mouths would eat so much that they would kill everyone with hunger_ , shot.”

There was a collective gasp from the Starfleet cadets. Jim Kirk stared at the bland photograph on the screen. Starfleet had come to Tarsus IV too late to record for memory the real horrors. All that could be demonstrated now, almost ten years later, was the aftermath.

“It is estimated that in fifteen minutes of utter pandemonium, Kodos’ soldiers killed no less than 3,000 people in this very warehouse.” The instructor paused for a collective gasp from the audience. “It took another two weeks for the remainder of the… _undesirables_ … to be tracked down and killed.”

Next slide. Jim nearly had a panic attack. He recognized that pathetic hovel, that so-ugly-it-was-overlooked hiding spot. He knew it. He had been there.

“This was a partisan’s hideout during some of the three-month period between Kodos’ first genocidal action and Starfleet intervention. It was unclear what had happened to the people who had lived there, but…”

Next slide. Inside the hovel, a squat and squalid little yurtlike hut so similar to so many other dwellings on Tarsus IV (though admittedly finding them in a remote woods location would be unusual): Dirt floor, ragged blankets, a cooking fire.

“The image shows no scale, but I am told this hut was not sized for adults, but for children. There have been no other hideouts found from this era in Tarsus IV’s history. It seems apparent that the residents of this place, like so many of the other colonists who had cause to hide from Kodos, were murdered or died of starvation with all the rest.”

_No no no no no you’re wrong some of us lived some of us lived some of us remember but all the rest died so so so many died and their bodies stank and then the flies ate them and the rats ate them and we ate the rats –_

“There were some survivors of Kodos’ massacre and genocide.” Next slide, image of a child on a biobed being healed by a Starfleet-garbed nurse. “Most of the 10,000 or so survivors of Tarsus IV were young adults. Several children were found who had lied about their age to survive or who had hidden in basements or walls. However, the majority were Earth men between the ages of 16 and 35. Almost everyone older had died by phaser or starvation, and almost everyone younger as well. Many women did not survive, as Kodos had decreed they were to receive half rations.”

Next slide. Kodos’ inner rooms. His crumpled dead body visible behind his monstrous desk.

“There are nine known survivors of the genocide on Tarsus IV who saw Kodos’ face. One of them, though which one is classified, killed Kodos.” The slideshow faded to black. “Any questions?”

Several hands went up. The professor called on one in the front row. “Why did none of the colonists call for help?”

“They did as they were able. The vast majority did not have communicators capable of sending transmissions off-planet. Those that did, namely Kodos’ government, did send transmissions begging for help from Starfleet.”

“Why did Starfleet take so long to send help?”

“Many of our ships were tied up in a standoff with the Klingons, many light years away from Tarsus IV. By the time any ships were available to help, it was too late.”

“How was Kodos identified?”

“His body was identified by the young man who had killed him.”

At that, the class of cadets was too shocked for anything more.

“All right, I want you all to come to class next time willing to discuss what went wrong on Tarsus IV. I’m letting you go early before anyone is sick in here.”

It took about five minutes before Jim Kirk could pull himself out of his chair and stumble back to his dorm room. He opened and shut the door to his room rather heavily. Bones – who had been curled up in an armchair reading a xenobiology textbook – jumped when he saw his roommate.

“Jim, what the hell happened to you? You look like the back end of a mule.”

“Thanks, Bones. Class happened. I’ll be fine.”

“The hell you will.”

Jim groaned.

“You did go to the military ethics class, right? The one on Tarsus IV?”

Jim’s stomach tried to rise in rebellion against its contents again. “Yes, I went to class.”

Bones gave him a searching look. “I don’t remember anyone in my class looking as peaky as you.”

_No one else in your class had ever been to Tarsus IV,_ Jim almost said. But he did say, “Maybe I’m just a sensitive man.”

Bones snorted at that.

Jim sank into a chair, too tired to argue. “It was... scenes out of another life,” he finally said. “Another planet.”

Bones gave him an odd look. “Well of course it was on another planet, Jim,” he said as though to a child. “Tarsus IV wasn’t Earth.”

Silence. Jim could not bring himself to say anything more, and it seemed Bones had run out of questions.

o0o0o

Aboard the Enterprise, after the defeat of Nero, Captain James T. Kirk paced his office, thinking. They had been sent out on a series of small missions, no longer than a month each time, usually just supply runs.

_I’m running out of patience for this crap. I was promoted in battle with an insane Romulan and even though I am the youngest captain in Starfleet history, they baby me._

A knock on his door disturbed his train of thought. “Enter.”

Spock entered his quarters. “Captain, we have been given a new mission.”

“Yes?”

“We are to take food and other supplies to New Vulcan. We are the nearest ship to the location of the supplies. Indeed, no other Starfleet ships are available for such a mission in this quadrant of space.”

_Hunger pain cold fear – old memories of being on Tarsus IV, not even old enough to shave but more than old enough to die if caught, and all the young ones with him –_

“Captain?”

“Yes, Commander?”

“Would you give the order over the Enterprise’s intercom for this mission?”

“Oh. Yes, of course. Sorry, Spock.”

Spock looked troubled.

“Out with it, Spock, what have you got to say?”

“Sir, on all previous missions you have appeared displeased by our mission parameters when such parameters have included short supply runs like this one.”

Captain Kirk sat heavily in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a long moment. “Do you know what it feels like to be truly hungry, Spock? And I don’t mean miss a meal, or even a whole day of meals, or even four days of meals; I mean missing weeks of full meals, never finding enough to eat for months on end. Have you ever been that hungry?”

“No, I have not, sir.”

“Well…” Kirk wasn’t sure how much he felt able to say to Spock. “I have been that hungry and I would do almost anything to keep other people from ever being that hungry if I can help it.”

Spock nodded. “That would be logical, considering your life experience in the matter.”

Kirk gave the order over the intercom. Spock turned and left. Kirk knew he had given much to Spock, indeed more than he had ever told McCoy (and Bones had been his roommate and friend!). Spock was likely too smart for his own good, and would figure out his story from what he said and from what he did not say.

But he shrugged and, rather than leave his chair and continue his pacing, went back to the paperwork he had been avoiding.

_It is a testament to the foulness of those memories that I prefer paperwork to reliving them._


	2. Part1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The main plotline of the story takes place in 2261, three years after the events of Star Trek 2009. Jim Kirk was 13 in 2246, during any events on Tarsus IV.

“Power, like a desolating pestilence,/ Pollutes whate’er it touches, and obedience,/ Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, /Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame / a mechanized automaton.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley

“In the face of a catastrophe on this scale so deliberately inflicted, perplexity is an indulgence we cannot afford.” – Inga Clendinnen

Aboard the Enterprise, one year into the five year mission into deep space and its uncharted territories, Captain Kirk was again pacing his office when he heard a knock on the door. “Enter,” he said, turning to find Commander Spock. “Hey, Spock. A new mission?”

“Yes, Captain. We have been asked to provide safe passage for a high-ranking government official from Cygnus IX to Cygnus X. It seems he wishes to conclude a peaceful treaty with his enemies on that planet and wants Starfleet and Federation protection.”

Kirk sighed. “Well, it’s more interesting than star-mapping, and not all that far out of our way. Sure, why not? I’ll give the order.”

“Very well, Captain.”

Kirk gave the order over the intercom system, but Spock did not leave his office. “Is there something else, Commander?”

Spock hesitated. The subtlest hint of worry crossed his features. “I have what… you would call a bad feeling about this mission, Captain.”

“Spock, if you’re going to admit _feelings_ in front of me, this seems like a friend-to-friend conversation where I need to be Jim, not Captain.” Kirk sat in his chair and gestured that Spock should sit. “Please, explain.”

“Very well. There have been reports from this planet that this official is no less than a dictator, and that he has killed great numbers of his own people to gain and keep power.”

Kirk was suddenly very glad he had sat down, unexpectedly very dizzy. “Spock, why did you not say this _before_ I gave the order to give this individual safe passage on our ship?”

“Jim, if he is what he says he is, then we have done the right thing. And if he is what my information indicates he is, well…” Spock gave a chilling grin. “Then he is here, where he can be interrogated, and which gives us the opportunity to investigate his planet for ourselves.”

“Maybe it was a bad idea to introduce you to feelings, Spock. That facial expression is awesome, and also really scary.”

Spock’s lips twitched. “It seems my human side is showing, my friend.”

Over the intercom, “Transporter to Captain.”

Kirk reached over and enabled the intercom. “Captain here.”

“Governor of Cygnus IX, Lord Nikolai Dadian, is requesting permission to be beamed up to the ship.”

Kirk looked at Spock. “I hope you’re right about this plan.”

“I am 95% certain of its success.”

Kirk flicked a button on the intercom. “Beam him up. I will meet him at the transport center and escort him to his quarters personally.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kirk turned to Spock. “Walk with me?”

“Of course.”

They walked from the captain’s office through the clean, wide, white hallways of the Enterprise. If Kirk squinted, he could remember what everything looked like in those dark last few minutes before he had gotten the warp core re-engaged after the fight with Khan. With no gravitational stabilizer, those beautiful hallways had turned on their head and turned into falls hundreds of feet long. It shouldn’t be possible to fall to your death on a starship, but it had happened.

_It will never happen again, not if I have to crawl back into that warp core again knowing Khan’s blood isn’t around to help Bones bring me back to life afterward._

Kirk remembered the look in Khan’s eyes when he had crushed Admiral Marcus’ skull. Kirk wished he hadn’t had to see that.

_Those eyes. Ruthless. Burning coals, a fire sparking to life as Marcus was extinguished –_

Spock spoke, interrupting Kirk’s thoughts. “Captain, I wished to ask you something about our mission to New Vulcan approximately 18 months ago.”

Kirk stopped walking and turned to Spock. He noted that there were no staff members prowling this part of the corridor. Spock had perfect timing some days. “Yes?”

“I have spent many months in an attempt to determine when you would have had the required months to become as hungry as you said you once had been. I found that a timespan, from approximately age twelve to age fourteen, has been missing from every conversation you have had with me, Uhura, or Dr. McCoy.”

Kirk felt dizzy and nauseated again. After a long pause to make sure he could control his voice, “So what is your question?”

“That timespan was the years 2245 to 2247, correct?”

“Yes, it was.”

Spock sucked in a breath. If Kirk didn’t know better, he would have thought he’d shocked his friend. “Is it appropriate to draw the conclusion that you were on Tarsus IV in 2246?”

Kirk’s eyesight swam and he nearly fainted. He felt Spock’s strong arm catch him from falling to the floor.

“I assume I should take that to be a _yes_ , Captain.”

“For a conversation like this,” Kirk managed to say without throwing up, “I’m Jim, not Captain.”

“Jim, then. But is my logic correct?”

“Why do you need to know?” Kirk tried to pull himself to his feet. “Why are you bringing it up now?”

“Your experiences as a survivor of the mass murder on Tarsus IV may affect how you behave as captain of this ship. It is my job to ask after it. And not to mention we are about to go escort someone who may well be a murderer himself.” Here Spock paused. “And you are my friend, and I care about you. I would rather know if something hurts you, than not know.”

“I knew it was a bad idea to teach you about feelings.”

“I will take that as sarcasm and accept your unspoken thanks for my feelings of friendship.”

“Thanks, Spock. And I do mean it, thank you for caring about me. But that isn’t a time in my life I talk about. I’ve never really talked about it and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. At least not without a lot of alcohol or unless I am under extreme stress. That should tell you everything you need to know right now, and if you need to know more, I will have to tell you at another time. Now, to the transporter room?”

“Of course, Captain.”

The two of them continued walking down the corridors. Kirk knew he had told Spock too much again, but there was no lying to Spock. For someone not truly capable of a lie, he was remarkably proficient at catching others in untruths, even white lies.

In the transporter room, they were met by a tall, thin man with thick brown hair and a thin mustache. His rich clothes and fine hands, and the grace by which he walked towards Kirk and Spock, showed him to be an aristocratic man, or at least the kind of man who pretends to aristocratic aspirations. “I am Lord Nikolai Dadian, Governor of Cygnus IX,” he boomed imperiously. Seeing that Kirk and Spock were unmoved, his tone softened. “I am glad of your assistance. I do not own or have access to a ship with security I can rely on capable of traveling between my people on Cygnus IX and our enemies in Cygnus X.”

“We are glad to be of service,” Kirk said shaking the man’s hand. “I am Captain James Kirk, and this is my first officer Commander Spock.”

The man did not shake Spock’s hand. “I was unaware of any Vulcans in Starfleet,” he said slowly, softly. “Surely they had all gone to… _repopulate_ their new planet.”

Kirk’s voice hardened when he saw how the governor refused to give Spock the same civil graces accorded Kirk. “Spock is a being who has earned my respect, Governor. I ask that you respect him despite your clear xenophobia.”

“Xenophobia?” His eyebrow arched. “If you say so, Captain.”

“Then come with me, please.” Kirk started off down the hallway, guest in tow.

_I know that face. I have seen that face before. I need to get that makeup off his face. What is he, an actor?_

“To my quarters until reaching Cygnus X, I presume.”

Spock trailed the governor, and the governor followed Kirk.

“In a manner of speaking,” Kirk said, sounding serene.

And, rather suddenly, the erstwhile guest found himself surrounded by red-shirted security officers.

“Ah, Lieutenant Hendorff.” Kirk grinned. “Would you please escort our guest to the brig, and give him something with which to take off his makeup, while I communicate with Starfleet?”

“Yes sir,” the lieutenant nodded. The man once known as Cupcake now served the man who gave him that name. Life seems to have a curious sense of humor sometimes.

_Life’s sense of humor has delivered a possible perpetrator of mass murder to the survivor of a different massacre on a different planet in a time out of mind. I just hope we’re all laughing at the end of this._

“This is outrageous!” the governor screamed. “I am Lord Governor of Cygnus IX!”

“I don’t care what planet you rule, I care only for what you might have done to your people,” Kirk hissed coldly. “If everything checks out, then you will be escorted to Cygnus X as promised to make the treaty arrangements. If things are,” here Kirk looked at Spock, “as we suspect, then you will be returned to Cygnus X until some Starfleet vessel can be bothered to drag your miserable prisoner hide to justice. Understood?”

Dadian squeaked. Kirk understood that to be both an “I understand” and “I’m doomed.”

Kirk left the prisoner – for that is exactly what the governor was at this moment, no joke about it – in Lieutenant Cupcake’s capable hands.

“Will you be leading an away team to the surface of Cygnus IX, Captain?”

Kirk looked at Spock, thinking for a very long moment. “Do you think I should, Commander?”

“With all due respect, Captain, I believe an away team is necessary, but that your participation in it would be less than helpful at this time.”

Silence.

_I’ve always led the away team. I’ve never been the kind of man to let life pass me by. Better to be of use on a dangerous planet than of less use, safe and cosseted back on the ship. But I don’t have the strength to deal with Dadian and keep my own emotions under control, and Spock is more than capable of dealing with this planet and will certainly be more objective than I._

After a full minute, Kirk said, “I agree. Would you be willing to lead the away team?”

“Of course. I will choose my other team members, by your leave.”

“Yes, Commander. Time estimate?”

“I anticipate it will require no less than three standard hours to prepare to beam down to the planet.” Spock walked away.

He would likely take Uhura with him and possibly Lieutenants Nabokov, Thomas, and Williams, Kirk knew. He walked back to his quarters, sat down, and commed the brig. “Captain to Detention Center.”

“Detention, Captain, Hendorff speaking.”

“Lieutenant, did you get the governor’s makeup off his face yet?”

“Uh, no sir. He is resisting.”

Kirk sighed. “Tell him that if he doesn’t get that makeup off, I will give the order for him to be chemically sedated. I want to see his real face and if I have to break out the less strictly regulation parts of our arsenal to make that happen, I will do it.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Kirk disconnected the comm call, sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He stared at the ceiling and drifted off in thought.

_I hope Spock was right and something is up. Otherwise those stuffy Admirals back in San Francisco will be quite unhappy with me. It’s not like I need or want another promotion beyond Captain, but it’s also not like they can fire me, so all they can do is make me miserable and give me and my crew the most boring missions they can find for the remainder of our five-year mission. As consequences go, that’s not too bad._

_And yet I so hope Spock’s wrong. I wouldn’t wish mass murder and genocide on a planet. Never. Never again will anyone stand by and let such things happen if I can help it._

Kirk’s thoughts automatically went to his conversation with Spock.

_He isn’t going to like that I threatened the prisoner, but it’s not like he’s currently available to reign in my more impetuous side. But I am_ not _looking forward to discussing Tarsus IV with him. I’ve never told anyone and never wanted to. What happened to me there and what I did there in order to survive showed and made the worst part of me._

On cue, there was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

_Speak of the Devil._

It was Spock, in uniform save for the extra phasers on a belt over his shoulder. “What can I do for you, Commander?”

“I have assembled a proper landing party and we are well on our way to being ready to beam down to the planet, Captain.” A flicker of emotion crossed Spock’s face. “I came as your friend, to see if you were all right, Jim.”

Kirk sighed. “You’re really not going to let go until I tell you what you want to know, are you?”

“I believe I should know at least the basics of your experience. Vulcan – “ Spock grimaced – “never experienced genocidal warfare before its destruction. Many other planets have, but the survivors have spread all over the galaxy and I have never spoken with any survivor about their experience. Considering I am about to land in what may be a war zone in all but name, I would appreciate any insights about what I am up against.”

Kirk was again glad he was sitting down, and managed not to faint or throw up. “Spock, you’re asking me to go into my darkest memories, while I am on duty, without the benefit of alcohol or any other agent capable of numbing my emotions enough to deal with them.”

“I know, Jim. I don’t ask it lightly. If you cannot speak about your personal experience, I understand.” Spock made to leave.

“Spock, wait.” Kirk met Spock’s eyes. “Even if I can’t tell you everything, not now, I can still tell you something, not only from what I have seen but also from what I have learned from more academic sources.”

Spock came back into the office and sat in the chair across from Kirk.

“I was not quite twelve when I landed on Tarsus IV,” Kirk said slowly. Even that was more than he had ever told anyone else. “It was a planet with remarkable xenodiversity, largely Earth humans but not all. The first winter I was there, everything was fine. Things didn’t start getting bad until spring, when the crop failed and there wasn’t anything to eat left from winter storage. Hungry people become desperate. The government, such as it was, collapsed, and the governor later called Kodos the Executioner appointed himself dictator.”

Spock nodded.

“That much you could have learned from a book. Here is something you can’t really understand from any one text on this kind of thing.” Kirk swallowed heavily, trying not to throw up. “The people who survived invariably were guilty of killing innocent people, or complicit to a greater or lesser degree in that killing. There is no such thing as a completely innocent survivor. All of them… _us_ … had to do things we weren’t proud of, just to survive.”

“Jim –“

“Don’t interrupt me, Spock, I’m not sure I’ll have the courage to go into this if I stop.” Kirk’s face was ashen and his knuckles were white where he was gripping the table. “When you go down to that planet, no matter what’s down there, some people will help you. They might look like victims. They probably are victims, most of them, even with the perpetrators hiding among them. But be careful. No one wants to admit to how they survived by stealing their neighbor’s last potato. No one wants to admit their daughters prostituted themselves to earn bread, that they traded the family heirlooms for a pumpkin, that they ate moss off the trees and even ate the rats which survived by eating the dead humans.”

Spock was silent for a long moment.

Kirk brushed angrily at his face. He could not help but cry. It was cry, pass out, or vomit, and the first was the easiest to deal with of the three. “I watched people die, Spock,” he said sluggishly, reaching for his tissue box. “Even with the destruction of Vulcan, which is damned close to a genocide in all but name, you lost everything all at once. I had months to watch people _suffer_. I watched my last living relatives starve to death because they refused to steal food from our neighbors. It took four months for them to waste away and die. I watched children claw at each other in the streets, inflicting fatal injuries on each other fighting for a potato peel. I saw what the typhus epidemic did to the already weakened starving people.”

Spock had one lone tear running down his face. “Perhaps we are not so different, you and I. I knew we were similar somehow, but I did not know about this part of your past before.”

Kirk reached one hand across the table to grasp one of Spock’s. “I don’t mean to hurt you, my friend. I don’t mean to minimize the destruction of Vulcan. That was awful and if I could have stopped it, I would have. But now, maybe you understand me well enough to go see that planet yourself. I just hope this is all a misunderstanding and you’ll fall into a barbeque party in the capital.”

They laughed together. It was the laughter of desperate people who had already lost everything and had nothing left to lose.

“Detention Center to Captain.” Hendorff’s voice came over the comm.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“We got the makeup off the prisoner’s face, sir.”

Kirk looked at Spock. “Want to see what we’re up against?”

“Yes, Captain.” The tear lines were fading from Spock’s face already.

Kirk knew he must look quite the mess after blubbering in front of Spock, but there was no help for it but the tissues he’d already mopped himself with. “Commander Spock and I are en route to the brig, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kirk pulled himself up out of his chair by an effort of will –

_I was so hungry I might have killed and eaten my own mother if she’d been on that planet. As it was, I lost every ounce of baby fat and then some when I ran from my aunt’s farm, ran into the woods and hid. I had no way of knowing if I was to go left or right, to death or to life, if Kodos’ men caught me. So I ran and ran and ran and ran until I could not run any more._

_The fresh smell of the evergreens dulled by drought – the smell of dry earth, caked clay, sandy riverbeds – the smell of burning farms and houses as Kodos’s soldiers went from house to house, confiscating food and making lists of the inhabitants, and if they met resistance, burning people out – the sounds of phaser fire, shouting men, the screams of the not-quite-dead butchered and sometimes eaten where they stood – the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears and feeling so, so, so scared, so scared I pulled into myself –_

Spock’s voice jerked Kirk out of his near-flashback. “Are you well enough to walk to the Detention Center, Captain?”

“Of course,” Kirk breathed heavily. “Just give me a minute. Bad memories.”

Spock looked at him sadly. Kirk knew the half-Vulcan would not say he understood, for that would be a lie. But Kirk got to his feet without further incident and walked down the Enterprise’s hallways, Spock by his side.

When they had almost reached the brig, Spock asked, “Captain, why did you want Dadian to remove his makeup?”

Kirk looked around quickly to ensure that his response would not be overheard. “Because I thought I recognized him.”

“From what?”

“I’ll let you know if I’m right.”

With that, Kirk entered the detention center. He nodded a greeting to Hendorff and looked, for a long moment, at Dadian. Without the makeup plastering his face, which had artificially lightened his skin tone, darkened his hair, and added the hairpiece and mustache (which appeared to have been fake), the face that looked back at Kirk was of a man not younger than fifty years of age and likely closer to sixty, with deep furrowed frown lines and more salt than pepper in his remaining hair. He looked a peculiar mixture of despondent and infuriated.

_Mug shot – younger but the same man – warning from Starfleet – man wanted for –_

Kirk snapped to Hendorff, “Photograph him, please, and send it to Starfleet Headquarters, Justice Department.”

Spock interrupted, “Captain?”

“What is the meaning of this?” roared Dadian. “I am a powerful man!”

“You are a murderer!” Kirk shouted. “Anton Kyevic, as Captain of the Enterprise, I hereby order that you be held in our detention center until you are positively identified and can be transferred to more proper authorities than I.”

Dadian paled. “I am not Kyevic! I don’t even know who Kyevic is! I am a diplomat and a head of state!”

Spock interrupted again, “Captain, what do you mean? Who is Anton Kyevic?”

“A murderer,” Kirk spat. “I’m going to fill out the paperwork to get him off my ship and to justice. And Spock –“ Kirk paused and swallowed hard. “Be careful down in Cygnus IX.”

Spock nodded. “Of course, Captain.”

Kirk stormed out of the brig. He made his way to the bridge, passing a bunch of security officers and ensigns in red shirts going in the direction of the caf and a handful of science officers in blue shirts with them.

“Keptin on ze bridge!” Chekov greeted him.

“Hello, Mr. Chekov.” Kirk forced himself to grin. He liked Chekov and shouldn’t show his outside anger to the poor kid. “Report?”

“Nussing of walue, Keptin. Other den, I am very confused why we are not leaving for Cygnus X yet. Iz there a problem wit de navigation or de coordinates?”

“No, not to worry, Mr. Chekov.” Kirk turned to Uhura. “Lieutenant, please transmit the following message to Starfleet headquarters: Possible Anton Kyevic, kilo-Yankee-echo-victor-India-Charlie, located on Cygnus IX. Held in detention center Enterprise on captain’s orders. Await request for transfer and coordinates for transfer of prisoner Kyevic.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” He paused, puzzled. “Aren’t you going with Spock on the away team?”

“Yes, but he said things weren’t ready yet. Whatever that means.” Uhura grinned. “Not going with us this time?”

Kirk’s grin drooped. “Not this time.” He had no need to affect a scowl. “Paperwork.”

Uhura dropped her voice. “Everything okay, Captain?”

Kirk’s breath hitched. How much had Spock told her? “I’ll have to let you know.”

Bidding Uhura goodbye, he left the bridge and walked back to his office. Seated in his chair, drinking water and wishing it were something stronger, he completed a captain’s log on finding Kyevic and dispatching an away team. It took several hours, but as soon as that business was done, Kirk had no further excuses to hide from his emotions.

_I’ve seen the look in Kyevic’s eyes before. I saw it in Khan’s eyes when he killed Marcus right in front of me. Anger, pain, fear, but murderous rage most of all. Bloodshot, irritated and red, looking like nothing more than hot coals. I’ve seen that look even before then, in the faces of men too hungry to consider things like morals._

_A man – not old – not young – gaunt – grinning the madman’s smile – gums receded, baring teeth – lips parched and bleeding – eyes red – cackling as he ate, watching us watch him –_

A knock at the door pulled Kirk back to reality, noting dimly that he was about three breaths from hyperventilating. He pulled himself together and said, “Come in.”

It was Bones McCoy this time. The doctor took one look at Kirk and said, “Give me one good reason for me not to drag your sorry self down to the sickbay.”

Kirk smirked. “Because you wouldn’t do that to your other patients?”

Bones chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. “Good point, except that I don’t have any patients right now. Thank goodness!”

“That must be a new record. Feel like downsizing your department? For some reason we keep running out of security personnel.”

“And give my medical personnel red shirts? No thanks. Next thing you know I’d be seeing them as patients.”

Kirk winced. The red shirt problem was something he would have to look into at some point, but why personnel in red shirts died or were severely injured so often was a mystery for all of Starfleet.

“Jim, I’m here as your doctor, but I’m also here as your friend. Both Spock and Uhura commed me, worried about you, though neither of them said much about _why_ they were worried. So, are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to drag it out of you?”

“Bones…” Kirk’s mouth was suddenly very dry. “I’ve already talked about some of it with Spock today.”

“That might be true, but look, kid, you have bled on me, drooled on me, and threw up on me more times than I can count in the six years I’ve known you. You even accidentally urinated on me in that one incident of mutual drunkenness I won’t elaborate on, and I have forgiven it all. I have seen every possible kind of crap being around you can bring. And you are _seriously_ going to try to duck talking to me with the excuse that you already shared feelings with the hobgoblin?”

Kirk heard his mouth say, “Don’t call Spock a hobgoblin, Bones,” but he already felt himself struggling against another panic attack.

_So much blood everywhere they cut Billy up right in front of me he wasn’t even done screaming when they butchered him and cut out his heart and they roasted it and it smelled like food but it still looked like Billy oh god why god I threw up everything I had eaten everything I could so sorely lose I lost my stomach and then my bladder and the soldiers left me in the corner in disgust and I lived but they left Billy’s bones in the fire -_

“Breathe, Jim, you have got to breathe, man.”

Kirk found himself still seated in his chair, Bones crouched in front of him, strong hands on his shoulders. He got himself back under control. “Flashback,” he managed to say through gritted teeth.

“No shit, Jim.” Bones stood and pulled a chair over so he was directly across from Kirk without the desk being in the way.

_Good, he’s swearing at me._

“How long has this been going on?”

Kirk weighed what he should tell Bones. He had never lied to his doctor (or the friend in his doctor) except by omission. He decided to tell a version of the truth. “Twenty years. Since I was six and my stepfather beat me half to death with his construction boots.”

Bones blinked. “Was this before or after the time he threw you down the stairs?”

“Before. He threw me down the stairs after I crashed “his” car off a cliff. Never mind it was my dad’s car, not his.”

Bones nodded sagely. He was quiet for a long moment and then said, “This seems like a talk that requires alcohol.”

“I’m on duty.”

“Look at the clock.”

Kirk did. Its face showed Kirk to be wrong and he had been off duty for two hours. Spock and Uhura must have left six hours ago, while he was doing paperwork. “Oops.”

“In this instance, losing track of time is forgivable,” Bones pulled a flask out of nowhere along with two shot glasses and poured something brown and delicious-looking, “as is continuing that endeavor.”

“To what end, Bones?” Kirk asked. “Why?”

“Like I need an excuse to drink. And you look like you need it. You don’t know it, but you’re about the color of a corpse right now, and it’s kind of freaky, especially since I’ve seen it before. So drink, dammit.”

“Far be it from me to turn down your contraband,” Kirk said, and drank it. It burned going down but he did feel slightly better.

“I resemble that remark.”

“Yes, you do.” Kirk laughed. “Thanks, Bones.”

“Don’t mention it. But please, by all means, continue lying to your chief medical officer about your panic attacks.”

“Bones…” Kirk felt like melting into his chair.

“Bullshit, Jim. Your childhood was hell. I know it. You know it. It’s written all over your body. But I know there’s a blank spot you would never directly address with me, and that ends now.” Bones’ tone softened. “If you’re having panic attacks I should have known about it earlier. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”

“It wasn’t a panic attack –“

“Again, I call bullshit. You were sweating, and shaking, not breathing normally, and Spock said you almost fainted earlier. That’s four symptoms of panic attacks as I learned them in medical school, and I’ve seen all but the last one in the last two minutes.”

Kirk knew he was right but hated to admit it.

“Spock didn’t tell me anything you actually discussed with him,” Bones continued, pouring another dose of alcoholic libation into the two shot glasses. “So feel free to start at the beginning.”

Before Kirk could respond, the intercom buzzed, Sulu’s voice within the machine. “Bridge to Captain.”

Kirk responded with an automatic motion with his left hand. “Captain here.”

“Captain, we have received communication from the away team. Can we patch Commander Spock through?”

“Of course. Please do so.”

There was a moment, and then static, and then Spock’s voice. “Captain, I regret to inform you that my worst case scenario for this planet does not even come close to what we have witnessed here.”

Kirk frowned, and a terrible nausea sank into his stomach. “In what way? Is anyone hurt? Do you need help?”

“No one is injured, though several of the security personnel have vomited. I cannot say that this is a personal weakness on their parts. No assistance is needed either, at least not at this time. But I can tell you that we have been misled about our mission to transport the governor from Cygnus IX to Cygnus X.”

“How so?”

“It appears…” there was a pause from Spock. “We have not made contact with anyone in the capital. Everyone we have encountered is dead. It appears any survivors have fled.”

It took several seconds for Kirk to understand fully what Spock meant when he said _everyone_. “So why does the governor want passage?”

“He has just conquered the whole of this planet and wishes to determine his standing with Cygnus X which has supported his newly conquered enemies. Or such would be my guess, based on documents we found in his office.”

“Spock, did you just admit to burgling a building against regulations?”

“On the contrary. When the governor requested passage from Starfleet he signed an agreement agreeing to an investigation into his identity, covering any Starfleet investigation. It is standard procedure in this quadrant.”

“If you say so, Spock. Keep me posted, all right?”

“Of course, Captain.” Pause. “Is Dr. McCoy with you?”

Bones growled, “What do you want?”

“Don’t mind him, Spock, he’s been drinking. What do you need him for?”

“A question.” Another pause. “When was the last time anything like this, that I have described, happened? What information is available on the effects of mass violence on a planet like this?”

McCoy leaned back in his chair, thinking, but Kirk already knew the answer before he said it. “Tarsus IV, in 2246,” he said, “and remarkably little information. It takes a long time for any survivor to talk about their experiences.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I must leave the comm, as Lieutenant Uhura is shouting for me.”

There was a hiss of static as Spock disconnected. Kirk sipped the alcohol in his second shot. Whiskey, his mouth determined, and the good stuff at that.

_Dammit, Spock, that’s a sneaky and underhanded thing to do. You must have figured that if I wouldn’t talk about Tarsus IV with you, I might talk about it with Bones, and for some reason you think I_ should _talk. For some reason that is utterly beyond me._

Bones’ voice interrupted Kirk’s thoughts. “The time period you have never talked about with me was mostly the year 2246,” Bones said slowly.

Kirk swallowed. “Yes.”

Bones’ face crumpled. “You survived Tarsus IV.” It was not a question.

Kirk didn’t answer, choosing to drink more of Bones’ whiskey instead.

“That explains why you looked like you were about to faint, after that military ethics class first year,” Bones looked like he was seeing things that were far away. “You never told me why you had reacted so badly.”

“I’ve never told anyone, Bones. Anyone who wasn’t there to see it. Who would have understood?”

Bones was quiet a moment. “How much of your old scars, which you had let me think were childhood abuse injuries, are actually from Tarsus IV?”

_Bones broke with a wet snap – couldn’t breathe couldn’t breathe ribs snapped – smell of beer, Frank roaring at a little child – you ruined your mother’s life when you were born you misbegotten little bastard –_

_The pain, god the pain when they forced his broken left arm into a straight enough line to be tattooed blue ink little numbers and letters he had tried to resist but he couldn’t when he was so weak hadn’t eaten in days weeks months maybe but as soon as the tattooer had let go of his arm and counted him and listed him he ran and ran and ran and ran –_

Kirk shook himself. “Many of them. Some of them didn’t scar as badly as the older injuries because I got medical care after Starfleet arrived.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Bones looked incredibly sad. The man really was a maudlin drunk.

They were quiet for a few minutes. Kirk had nothing he wanted to say, but even despite the reason Bones was in his office he appreciated the man’s company.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Bones asked.

Kirk gave him a hard look. “Would you willingly talk about the worst things you had ever done and seen?”

“Yes. Remember all my stories about my ex-wife leaving me nothing but my bones in the divorce?” Bones took a swig of the alcohol. “I’m not proud of some of the things I said about her and to her around our daughter.”

“I wish that the worst things I’d ever done were like that.”

There was another long pause.

_The stolen potato was the best thing I ever tasted. I watched everyone around me die and I, deathless, could only watch, and steal to eat, and worse. The only thing of value was food, calories, anything to give one’s body energy and sate one’s stomach. The labor of one’s body was meaningless compared to a loaf of bread. Anything to eat!_

“Tell me.”

Kirk blinked. “What?”

“You’ve never talked about it. That prisoner in the hold, if he is the killer you say he is, means you have to face all those memories you’ve got bottled up. So, either you tell me, or I give you a truth serum and stick you in a soundproof room until you’ve talked it out.”

Kirk balked, jaw dropping open and then slamming shut with an audible _click_. “Bones – “

“Don’t “Bones” me, Jim. I mean the best for you.” He took a long swig of the whiskey. “I’d rather like to listen, but you need to get it off your chest, one way or the other or whatever.”

There was a long pause. “I can tell you some,” he finally said. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, first off, how did you recognize the man in the brig?”

“I keep up to date on the Starfleet most wanted lists. The ones wanted for genocide,” Kirk swallowed against his gorge. “Those tend to stick in my mind for reasons you can guess. I recognized him, even under his makeup. In a blink of an eye I saw what he had tried to hide.”

_Just like you’re doing right now. I saw him, and that has let (at the least) Bones, Uhura, and Spock see me, when that part of me I had wanted nothing more than to bury forever. Better to be remembered as twenty-five years old and legend for saving Earth from Nero – better to be remembered as twenty-six and coming back to life after dying of radiation poisoning – than to be twenty-eight and be remembered as the 13-year-old I was on Tarsus IV._

“I can guess, but I don’t know. Not really.”

“You can’t know. You weren’t there. I was and,” A wave of nausea passed over Kirk, “there are days I can’t believe my own memories, but they’re too horrible to have been dreamed up.”

“Tell me about it,” Bones finally said. He looked haggard. “I would pour whiskey into you until you told me, but I’d rather have you tell me, as your friend, because you want to.”

“I am ashamed of what I did,” Kirk said in a low voice. He could feel tears in his eyes again. “I lived when so many died and I lived because I could do things that were so disgusting it makes my skin crawl.”

_Hiding in a garbage heap – behind barrels of tanning solution – good thing the soldiers didn’t have dogs the dogs would have smelled me but all the dogs were eaten after the blight hit – but the soldiers did have eyes so I had to be still oh so still and not move even though I felt bugs crawling all over me and the reek and the rot –_

“Jim,” Bones put a hand on his knee, making Kirk flinch involuntarily. “Jim, you lived and they died. That doesn’t make you bad. You were a kid. You were a strong kid, though, and you did what you had to do.”

Kirk’s eyes were hollow as he looked searchingly into Bones’ face. “I got them killed,” he said in a strangled voice.

Bones blinked. “Tell me the story, or part of the story. Let me judge for myself.”

Kirk swallowed the last of his whiskey and ran a hand through his hair. “All right,” he said. “I will tell you part of the story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kirk's survivor's guilt is, sadly, relatively common among survivors of trauma such as mass violence. His guilt colors many of the things he says here and will say later. As a historian specializing in the Holocaust, I must urge one to take what he says with a grain of salt. What Kirk says about victims being complicit is extreme.


	3. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't paid attention to the warnings before now: this is not a nice chapter. It involves really horrific amounts of violence. I almost threw up writing it, and I'm used to this stuff because I work with similar material in my research. Please, for the love of God, if you're triggered by violence or just don't like it, DO NOT READ THIS.

“One is left with the troublesome thought that there may not have been much resistance at all to involvement in genocide, that it is by no means foreign to man-in-society, and that many features of contemporary ‘civilized’ society encourage the easy resort to genocidal holocausts.” – Leo Kuper

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.” ― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

_Flashback, 2246, Tarsus IV: Late Fall_

A ragtag little band of children was in hiding. That they had lasted this long was nothing short of a favor from the hand of Fate; or perhaps when Fate pushes away with the left hand She pulls towards Herself with her right. Eight children between the ages of five and fifteen, some girls and some boys, all humanoids (though including two of recent Vulcan ancestry); they had built a hideout, such as they could, as near as they dared to the colony they once called home.

Jim Kirk was not the eldest of the band, nor the tallest, nor the wisest, but he was the smartest, the boldest, and the most ruthless. He made sure the little ones weren’t left behind and were held in the night so when they screamed in their sleep they might be comforted. He could not offer them food to eat or clothes or wear or even the comfort of a fire, most times. They were cold and hungry and so dirty they were camouflaged into their forest environment.

But they were alive. They were alive when no less than half of the people they had known and cared about on this godforsaken planet were dead. Not only were their mothers and fathers dead but so were all the people who had ever known their mothers and fathers.

Nature was more than capable of inflicting such harm on a population. A millennium before on Earth, the Black Death had done as much in Europe, killing approximately 30-40% of the population. But humans were very effective at killing each other much the same way, and unlike Nature or Fate, humans had no wisdom in determining the strong and the weak, the worthy and the damned.

So, on a cold fall day, Jim Kirk found himself curled up with four other children in a puppy pile covered with blankets. They were all starving. Few of them had eaten two sequential full meals in months. Without body fat, they could not keep warm. Already one of their number had succumbed to hypothermia and died in the night. And, Jim knew, here on Tarsus IV, winter was about to begin.

He had a choice to make – and it was indeed _his_ choice to make, since no one else wanted to make any choice – to build a fire or not. Without the fire they would get cold and die, if not tonight or tomorrow night or next week then soon. With a fire, they could be caught by Kodos’ soldiers, still hunting escapees. Jim had found remnants of the last group of partisans, adults he judged from the size of their butchered bodies and pieces of cooked meat left by the improvised firepit. Jim would die before he let any of the little ones suffer that fate.

But for now, he was cold, and none of them were going to get warm. So Jim poked the emaciated little boy sleeping on top of him. “Billy, I’ve got to get up.”

Billy’s teeth chattered. “But it’s cold.”

“I know. We need a fire.”

Billy’s eyes went wide. “But they’ll catch us!”

“I know, but if we don’t have a fire, T’Lora and Jerry are going to die like Siggy did.” Jim motioned to the two smallest of the party, the young Vulcan girl and a human boy who couldn’t be more than six years old. Jim had found T’Lora hiding in an empty hogshead in an abandoned brewery, and Jerry in a burned-out farmhouse, hiding in the basement to escape the fate of his family (which was to be killed, butchered, and burned).

Billy nodded solemnly. Jim had the sudden image of a bobblehead. This poor withered child, and he could not be much older than five, looked like a miniature old man. His teeth were starting to fall out – all of their teeth were, from lack of calories and especially from the lack of Vitamin C – and his fine blond hair had been falling out in patches for weeks. But, most disturbingly, his skin was stretched taut over his skull, stuck like a candy apple on a too-thin neck. Jim knew they all looked like that, even Jim himself.

Billy moved enough to let Jim out of the puppy pile. Jim was hit with the sudden awareness of cold. It wasn’t even below the freezing point of water – it did snow on Tarsus IV, but not solidly so, like Jim remembered from Iowa, god that seemed so far away from now it might as well be another life – but the lack of body fat, and now the lack of everyone’s body heat, meant they were all dying, just faster or slower.

It was a choice between dying quickly or dying slowly. Jim chose the fire. Small sticks gathered from the forest floor actually caught aflame rather easily, just outside the little hovel of a hideout they had made. Jim had a nice fire going in double time. It wasn’t much, but it might just be enough to delay death one more hour, one more day, one more night, one more dawn.

One of the older children, Orfil, came out of the hovel and sat on the ground next to Jim. “You sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked after a minute or so of silence.

“No,” Jim said, “But I’ve never believed in doing nothing.”

Orfil nodded. His family had been one of Kodos’ favored, on a better part of the Lists than most colonists, but in the end even they lost preferential status and Orfil had had to run before his former friends in the army caught up with him. He had only been hiding out for six weeks and was in much better condition than most of them, though that wasn’t saying much.

“We will get through this,” Jim said, looking into Orfil’s eyes.

Silence. Orfil’s expression was like that of a corpse. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “If I live, I will have to live with myself and the fact that I ate food that had been stolen from other people. They died because I ate their food. If I die, I am dead and I can be with my friends again, but I am also not alive, and this world is the only one I’ve ever known.”

Jim put an arm around Orfil’s shoulder. “We have to live. It’s exactly what they don’t want. To live is our best revenge.”

Orfil’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Jim, look at us,” he said, lifting his sleeve and Jim’s on their left arms to find tiny numbers in blue tattoo ink at the inside of the forearm. Jim read 24778 on his own arm and 40587 on Orfil’s. “We’re numbered like animals. We’re hunted like animals. If we’re caught we’ll be butchered like animals. Out here we have to live like animals. The most we can hope for is to die as humans, not animals or machines.”

Jim was quiet. He rubbed at his elbow, the phantom pain of the tattoo robot’s needle – _we need to know who you are to give you the right rations –_ returning to him. “We’ve come this far,” he said. “We’d be fools to give up now.”

 Silence. Neither of them had the energy for further argument. None of the ragtag band had eaten much of anything in a week. They could not bring themselves to eat Siggy’s body, but they did eat the rats that had been attracted to it. But a starved rat is not a meal to a starved human.

Billy came out of the hovel and curled up in Jim’s lap. Jim noted that the small child’s belly was distended, as was all too common to the starved people of Tarsus IV. It was not a good sign. Billy needed something to eat, and soon. They all did, but the little ones could stand so much less than even Orfil and Jim and Marlena, aged fifteen, thirteen, and twelve, respectively.

The fire crackled and one by one the little band came out of the hut to warm themselves. Orfil boiled water in the kettle Jim had taken from Jerry’s burned-out home. They washed with it, such as they could. Marlena and Stonn, a half-Vulcan boy about age ten, gathered ferns. The ferns were utterly inedible raw, but when they could boil water the green and brown fern “soup” was at least something to put in hungry bellies. The children knew better than to eat the white plants that looked like carrots. Carrots didn’t cause people to seize, choke on their own vomit, and die slowly. They had found that out the hard way and were not keen to die.

By common agreement the little ones “ate” first, though none could ingest more than a few mouthfuls. It was better than nothing at all. Billy had some and went to sleep on Jim’s lap. T’Lora and Jerry had become inseparable, and after getting warm and “eating” returned to their accustomed sleeping spot in the hovel. Marlena and Stonn “ate” as they were able, and sat back-to-back with each other to save the energy of sitting upright. Kevin, aged 8, came out of the hut long enough to wash and have a mouthful and went immediately back to sleep.

Orfil had a few mouthfuls and offered the remainder to Jim. “No, you eat,” Jim insisted.

He looked Jim up and down, his expression clearly showing _you’re starving and turning down food?_

“Just makes me feel worse later and I did eat that rat yesterday.”

Orfil nodded. “You better put that fire out soon,” he said. “Unless you want to tempt fate more than necessary.”

Jim nodded. “I know. We both saw what happened to those partisans the next ridge over.”

The elder boy returned to his sleeping bag. In their starvation, none of the children had much energy for anything. When the weather permitted they foraged for berries and this world’s equivalent of tree fruits – when weather and energy permitted. They needed thick fog and a little drizzle to hide them from any soldier patrols when they were all out scavenging, since the best foraging areas were much closer to “civilization” than this small encampment.

But on days like this, dry enough for a fire and the fog threatening to turn into a proper rain-and-lightning storm, Jim judged it better to stick near shelter, and to conserve energy. So he sat and curled up by the fire with a little kid, the little brother he’d never had.

Jim was wary, though, and put out the fire with the last of the boiled water, and carried Billy back to the puppy pile. He just hoped they would survive tomorrow – and the day after that, and the day after that, and on into the indeterminate future.

They slept through the day and night had fallen when Jim was awoken. Something big was crashing through the underbrush by their hut. Voices, adult voices, were audible outside the hut.

_Soldiers! We’ve been found!_

He woke Billy and the rest and had time to throw open the hidden trapdoor to the cellar, but it was too late. They did not have time to hide themselves, and they were caught.

Orfil was killed when a soldier’s bayonet gutted him. He died quickly, which is more than could be said for Stonn, crushed to death by a soldier’s boot. The others were bound and carried off, thrown over these brutal men’s shoulders like so many sacks of potatoes.

Actually, on Tarsus IV, the potatoes would have been more valuable than any of these children. Too bony to eat, they seemed to have been judged.

What awaited them in the capital – which is where they ended up, not twelve hours after capture – was beyond Jim’s imagination.

They were all together, those of them who remained. They were thrown into prison, yes. But it was warmer here than it had been in the forest, and they were fed. _Fed._ Glop, gruel of indeterminate and possibly human origin, but _fed._ Jim ate as much as he could stand. Billy could only tolerate a few mouthfuls. Marlena had been kicked in the stomach and could not eat at all. But, miracles of food aside, Jim knew what capture meant. Death. Fast or slow, this meant death for him and all these children he’d grown to care for.

It made him almost throw up the first food he’d had in days.

He had failed. He had done everything he could and he still failed to save them and keep them safe. And they were all going to die.

Jim wept. Billy sat on his lap and hugged him, but still Jim wept.

Hours passed. Thought and time ceased to matter to Jim. Their cell was warm and the food sated the worst of their hunger and Jim eventually slept, sharing blankets with little Billy. Orfil was dead and Stonn was dead. The others were alive, and – Jim thought to himself – maybe there was still some way to help them.

Eventually, their cell door was opened and a tall, thin man stepped into it. The children all stood in alarm and backed into a corner, the farthest point from this man, whose face was like the night and his eyes burning like a dying man’s.

The children and the man had their faceoff for several long minutes. The man broke it, saying, “How many little bands like yours are out in the forest?”

No answer.

“How many children are there out there?”

No answer.

“How old are you?”

No answer.

“Who fed you? How did you survive?”

No answer.

The man finally flushed red and shouted, “ANSWER ME!”

The children blinked at him and ran to hide behind Jim. Jim was a scrawny young man, but he drew himself up to his full height and stared at this man.

“Do you know who I am, boy?” the man roared. “Do you know who I am and what I can do to you?”

“I do,” Jim Kirk said softly. “You are Kodos, and you can kill me and everyone else here.”

“Aha! Now we are getting somewhere!” The man cackled. Jim had never heard anyone cackle before. “Where were you born, boy?”

Jim hated to be called boy. Frank called him boy. “I was born in space.”

“In space? Well isn’t that interesting.” Kodos looked Jim in the eyes. “That explains your eye color, then. Blue, but not natural. Some kinds of space radiation change eye color that way. What is your name, boy?”

At this, Jim went silent.

The man walked two steps over to Jim and hit him hard across the face. It stung and Jim’s eyes watered. “Your name, boy!”

“No.”

“No! No? Why do you refuse to answer me?” Kodos hit Jim again.

Jim’s lip split and it bled, but Jim did not cry out or make a sound. Unfortunately Jim Kirk knew how to take a beating.

Kodos seemed impressed by this young man’s stoicism, but that quickly turned to rage. “What if I threaten this one?” He reached behind Jim, grabbled T’Lora, and pulled her past Jim and held her against his own body. Kodos pulled out a dagger and scratched it very carefully against her very sensitive pointed ears.

Jim blanched. His face was a spectacularly colored mottled purple from the fresh bruising and red from all the blood, and still he blanched.

“Ah, that gets a reaction. Well, how about this?” In one smooth motion, Kodos cut off T’Lora’s right ear. He gave her enough time to scream, and then he cut her throat. The arterial spray soaked Jim’s shirt. Two feet away from him, his friend – a small child – had just been murdered. And Jim couldn’t even move.

Kodos took T’Lora’s dead weight and dragged it outside the cell. His soldiers fell upon it and began butchering the remains. They got blood all over the hallway and each other. Kodos, however, was clean of it, except for his shoes where he had stepped in the blood.

“Now,” Kodos turned back to Jim, “shall we begin?”

The remaining four children were left in the cell with T’Lora’s blood. Jim was led to Kodos’ office, which in peacetime – before famine – had likely been a dining room. Jim’s clothes were stripped off him and he was given clean ones.

“I admire your spirit,” Kodos said, as he stared at the starved child in front of him. “So few people have such spirit left in them after being so hungry for so long.”

Jim had no reply. He was too occupied by the look in T’Lora’s eyes. _Save me_ , her expression had said, but Jim could not. She was dead and gone and likely dinner by now.

“Who are you, child? How did you find this backwards little colony so far from home, wherever home is for you? Where are your mother and father? Are they living?” There was a long silence. “But you won’t answer me, will you, child? Of course not. I killed your friend. In fact, I bet you rather wish I’d killed you instead.”

Jim did not reply, but Kodos was right. Jim would not willingly tell him anything, and he would have given Kodos almost anything to have died in T’Lora’s place.

“You’ve always thought you were a nothing,” Kodos said softly, as if to himself. “Someone in your life always told you that you were nothing. That you are quite the something, a marvel even, has not occurred to you.”

Jim’s face had been mopped of blood before he changed his clothes, but a split lip doesn’t always stay closed, and this one didn’t. Jim’s mouth bled, all on its own.

“That person, whoever they are, has done you an incredible disservice,” Kodos hissed.

Seeing Jim’s bleeding lip, he placed a box of tissues within Jim’s reach and Jim took them, bleeding onto them rather than his shirt.

“I would rather have you serve me,” Kodos continued, reddish-brown hair glinting in firelight, dark eyes glowing still, “but if I have to, my boy, I will kill your friends in front of you before I kill you as I killed your friend.”

“What do you want from me?” Jim asked softly.

“Your name, for starters.” Kodos relaxed in his chair, leaning back into it and away from Jim.

“Jim.”

“Jim,” the older man tried out the name. “Where are you from?”

“Riverside, Iowa, Earth. Before that, space.”

“And how did you get to Tarsus IV?”

“I was staying with relatives for the year while my mother served a term on the _USS Farragut_.”

“And are these relatives living?”

“No.” Jim’s face looked pained.

“How did you find that motley collection of children?”

“I found them or they found me. Hiding, looking for food. It depended.”

“And how did you hide?”

“Carefully.”

“Were any children gone when you were… returned to civilization?”

“No. All of us are present here.” Jim’s face looked pale again. “Or dead.”

“How did you escape into the woods in the first place?”

“I waited until night when no one was looking, and I ran as far and as fast as I could away from the homestead after my aunt starved to death.”

“Were you counted by my census-men?”

“Yes.”

“What is your number?”

“24778.”

Kodos looked surprised for a moment. “With a number like that you would have been on the ration list. Why did you run?”

“I don’t trust people,” Jim said bitterly. “And considering you killed my friend in front of me not an hour ago, I don’t think I was wrong to run.”

Kodos’s face flashed with anger but he did not move from his chair. “You are an insolent child. I take it back, with an attitude like that my soldiers would have killed you.”

“Then why didn’t they?” Kirk spat. “They had the chance to when they took us from –“

“Simple. My plans worked too well. We have enough food stores to last until the next harvest with the current number of colonists, but we are missing all the children.” _Because I had them all killed_ went unsaid. “It would be useful to have some children around for the jobs adults are too big to do, like sweep chimneys. And, also, I was curious. No other adult partisan groups have been heard of in a long while. That children outlasted adults in the wild – I wanted to know why.”

“So why did you kill T’Lora?”

“Her death told you that I mean business, and you can make the others of your merry band convinced of my intentions.”

“To kill us all?”

“If need be, yes,” Kodos looked pained. “I never wanted to have to kill all those people, never wanted to give the order, but it was kill half the colony or hunger would kill all of us. I made my choice. Save the strong at the cost of the weak.”

“It was the wrong choice,” Jim whispered. He did not have the strength to shout it.

“Perhaps. History will tell us.” Kodos rose from his desk and gestured to a small bed prepared by his fireplace. “I would have you be my _… go-fer,_ as you will. To send messages for me if necessary. To assist me when I need assisting.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I kill all your friends down in the holding cells.”

Jim swallowed. Anything to keep them alive, even pretend to join this monster with delusions of grandeur. “And if I agree?”

“For every day of your service, you and your friends will be fed and kept safe. If you try to run, I will kill them.”

“Why me?” Jim swallowed, trying to keep himself from throwing up.

“The rest are too young to understand my orders, and you are in the best physical condition, somehow. That, and you are the leader of the merry little band. If I control you, I control all of you, and I would rather not kill children if I can help it.”

After a long minute, Jim said, “I accept your offer.”

o0o0o

The whiskey in Bones’ flask was long gone, but he looked like he desperately wanted a drink after hearing that. Jim had lost control of his nausea and vomited the contents of his stomach when he remembered the gruel he had been fed in Kodos’ house.

_It tasted like just-cooked meat and blood and smelled like sweat and they broke the bones for marrow to put in the gruel oh god –_

Kirk felt Bones’ hand on his shoulder. “Jim, you lived. That’s more than so many others can say about Tarsus IV. You lived when about 40,000 others didn’t.”

“I lived and they died,” Kirk muttered.

“You fought tooth and nail to survive and did everything you could to make it possible for other people – children! – to survive. That’s not wrong, Jim, that’s heroic. No less heroic than you fixing the warp core and getting yourself killed in the process!”

“Who is to say who is worthier of life?” Kirk said slowly. “The dead who died with honor, and the living without it?”

“Jim,” Bones’ voice turned frosty. He seemed about to lay into Kirk, but thought better of it, and his expression softened. “What did your mother say?”

Kirk blinked at the non sequitor. “What did my mother say? What do you mean?”

“When you got home after Tarsus IV. What did she say?”

“I didn’t go home after Tarsus IV.”

“What!” Bones jumped to his feet and almost hit his head on Kirk’s bookshelf. “Are you telling me that Winona Kirk didn’t come running after her youngest son narrowly survived genocide?”

“Yes, I am.” Kirk cleared his throat and imitated his mother’s voice as he remembered it, a high-pitched hysterical shriek. “ _I don’t care what happened to you on Tarsus IV, Frank won’t take care of you and I am going back into space. I don’t care how many hangnails you got pulling your aunt’s weeds, or how many lives you didn’t have a chance to ruin by being born. Stay with Starfleet Medical for all I care. Goodbye, James._ ”

Bones’ hands were curled into fists. “I hate that woman,” he said sharply.

“You and me both.”

“I hated her when I thought she had ignored all the injuries Frank gave you. I hated her when I thought she had left you in his drunkard’s care. I hated her when she blamed you for your father’s heroic self-sacrifice and when she blamed you for your older brother running away. But now I _really_ hate her. Even if she had known nothing but what the news channels were putting on – hell, if I’d seen those news reports on that planet where my daughter is, I’d make you break speed records on this tin can just to get there.”

“Don’t call the Enterprise a tin can, Bones,” Kirk added tiredly. “Scotty doesn’t like it.”

“Don’t get me off topic, Jim!” Bones was well on his way to a proper snit, pacing in front of Kirk’s desk. “I’m six years older than you are. I was nineteen and in university when you were thirteen on Tarsus IV. I remember what the news was saying about it and how the _hell_ Winona Kirk didn’t jump ship to get to you is beyond me.”

“She never was much of a mother. I reminded her too much of the husband she lost on the day I was born. To her, I was worth nothing, and she treated me that way.”

Bones’ commentary on this was largely unpublishable (not to mention physically impossible, if the crudity were taken as actual verbs) and ended with, “- that rotten piece of _garbage_. Everything she thought of you, is actually true of _her_. Witch.”

“Such kind words, and you’ve never even met her,” Kirk added. The whiskey was gone, though he wished it weren’t. He wasn’t nearly drunk enough to deal with the emotions relating to his mother’s abandonment.

“How did you make a living? After she abandoned you like that, I mean.”

“I was fifteen before I was well enough to leave Tarsus IV, and sixteen before I could find a captain willing to take me off that hated chunk of space rock. I spent a year working hard labor on a mining asteroid, and then a year on a space station, learning all the things I missed hiding out in the woods for so long.”

“And you got back to Earth eventually.”

“Yes. I worked construction for a few years until Pike found me in that bar in Riverside.”

Bones was silent for a little while. “Jim, what’s your IQ again?”

Kirk knew better than to keep tight-lipped about this, much as he hated to discuss it, but it was in his medical file and he could tell Bones now or Bones would just find out later. “175. Approximately.”

“Didn’t you quote Pike as asking you, _do you really like being the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest_?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Jesus, Jim, you could have graduated college at 17 and had a PhD by 21. You could have been teaching classes at Starfleet at 22, rather than just arriving and taking classes yourself.”

“But that was never what you wanted out of life, is it.” Bones was not asking a question.

“I like to think I turned out okay, Bones. Youngest captain ever, twenty-five year old savior of Earth and all that.” Kirk felt a smirk crawl on his face.

Bones snorted. “Well, it’s true, I find it hard to imagine you could have done anything better with your life. Hard to imagine being a captain any younger. _Kid._ ”

“I resemble that remark.”

“Yes, you do.”

The two men smiled and laughed at the echo of the same words from earlier in the evening.

“Seriously, Bones. I did okay for myself, even being a,” Kirk pulled a face, “genius and being almost entirely self-taught. I was never going to ask anyone’s help getting back to Earth, getting back to what I really wanted in life. Though, I must admit, I wasn’t quite clear on that.”

Bones stopped pacing and sat back down in the chair opposite Kirk, putting his hand on the younger man’s shoulder briefly.

“I didn’t want much to do with Starfleet, not when it took them the better part of a year to save the remaining people of Tarsus IV, not after they kept sending my mother into space and she kept leaving me with Frank. Not after my father died, being captain of the Kelvin for 12 minutes and saving 800 lives doing it.” Kirk swallowed hard. “You try living up to hero dad. You can’t. I couldn’t, especially when I was just getting used to being a real person again after Tarsus IV.”

Boned looked puzzled. “What do you mean, _a real person_ , Jim?”

In answer Kirk lifted his left sleeve to show the faded, tiny blue numbers. 24778. Still legible after fifteen years.

“They gave me a number instead of my name. I was a tool, a servant, a fool. I was a cog in a machine, blind, twisted, assistant of evil.” He pulled the shirt sleeve down with a single angry tug. “I had to get used to having choices, to not being just animal with needs like eating, sleeping, and copulating, but real thinking being choices – who am I, what am I, where am I going, what can I do with myself. Everything I was had to change. I had been given the mark of a slave.”

“Jim,” Bones said hoarsely, “Those numbers are the mark of a survivor, not a slave. You lived and managed to be able to make those choices again. There are so many who with half your terrible experiences are too broken to do so.”

Kirk gave a wan smile. “So you say.”

“So I _believe_ , Jim. Look, you were the captain of the Starfleet flagship at 25. The near destruction of Earth should have been the worst hell anyone should have to witness, but life wasn’t done shitting on you. You survived Frank beating you silly before you turned twelve. That alone would be enough to break some people and I’d never think less of them. You did more than that. You survived a mass murder on a planet where less than half its inhabitants survived. And you even came out halfway normal, panic attacks aside.”

Silence. Kirk looked at the clock. They had been sitting there for five hours and Kirk was due back on duty in seven. “We both need to get some sleep, Bones. Call it a night?”

“All right, Jim.” Bones rose. “But call me if you have another panic attack, okay?”

“All right.”

Bones walked out of Kirk’s office and went towards his own. Kirk reached for his intercom. “Kirk to Bridge.”

“Bridge, Uhura responding.”

“I thought you were down on Cygnus IX with Spock.”

“I was. The away team returned to the ship to sleep. We all needed a breather after what we saw down there.”

Kirk paused. “I will go with you in the morning, back down to the planet.”

“You sure of that, Captain?”

“As sure as I can be.”

“In any case, was there some reason you commed the bridge, Captain?”

“I wanted to ask about the away team’s progress, but I heard what I needed to hear and I’ll ask Spock about the rest when I am more awake.”

“Sleep well, Captain.”

“You too, Uhura. Assuming you get around to it. Kirk out.”

Kirk went to his quarters and fell quickly into an uneasy sleep as soon as his head hit his pillow. Too many bad memories for one day, he decided. He would deal more with them in the morning.

o0o0o

Kirk rose early enough, after a fitful night’s sleep, to make it to the bridge. He gave the conn to Sulu for the time being, before he headed for the transporter room. The Enterprise’s wide hallways had never reminded him so much of the medical center he spent several months in, gaining weight back after Tarsus IV. Perhaps the same architect had a hand in both creations.

Spock was not surprised to see him in the transporter room with himself, Uhura, Nabokov, Williams, Thomas, Greene, and Shaw, making up a team of eight personnel. “Good day, Captain.”

“G’day, Spock.” Kirk gave Spock a broad smile in an attempt to cover his nervousness.

“We’re ready to beam you down, sir,” the red-shirted transport specialist on duty said.

“Thank you, Mr. Newton,” Kirk replied. All eight away team members got into position on the transport pad. There was the whine of the machine, and then their atoms all dissociated and they found themselves beamed to the planet floor.

“You ever wonder where your consciousness goes when your body is temporarily nonexistent during beaming?” Kirk asked Spock.

“No, Captain, I have not wondered that.” Spock frowned. “I believe I will now wonder about it on the next time it is necessary for me to beam somewhere.”

Kirk inhaled a deep breath. Cygnus IX was a desert planet and Kirk expected to smell salt, sand, and wind. Instead, he coughed and felt instantly nauseated.

“I know that smell,” Kirk groaned.

Putrescine and cadaverine. And burnt flesh. Someone or something had died here. Considering how strong the smell was, that someone was a lot of someones. It wasn’t just the smell of rotten meat or week-old fish. It was the shit smell of intestines as they rotted before the skin burst. It was the blood-smell, copper and iron, that soaked the very ground. It was the scent-echo of beings who had died in pain, fear one could still smell on the wind.

“It is the same smell I remember from San Francisco after Khan crashed the Vengeance,” Spock said behind him.

_And I remember it from Tarsus IV, when so much of the planet – everywhere there had been humans – smelled like this._

Kirk looked around. He didn’t see any dead bodies, but did see an open-air firepit.

_Oh no._

Kirk kicked at the sand on which he was standing, and was rewarded – if one could call it that – by the sight of old blood that had clotted in the sand. The wind must have covered the blood between its falling to the ground and the present. He walked over to the firepit, a ring of stones and charred wood in its center. Charred bones ringed the wood. Human or animal, Kirk couldn’t tell.

_Hard to tell after bones have been cooked and cracked for the marrow. Even the skull could be stuck in the fire. Charred skin peeled off, skull shattered to expose the brain poached in its own juices. But once eaten, any bone would largely have been shattered by the efforts to obtain the food within._

“You found no one living?” Kirk heard himself ask Spock.

“No, Captain. Several places like this, some streets lined with shallow graves, but no living beings.”

_I would know about the uses of firepits. Tarsus IV was riddled with them. Wherever the soldiers were – underfed, underpaid – there were firepits also._

The away team headed along a path away from the site. Uhura seemed to know where she was going. Perhaps her strong stride was only that she did not want to remain near that contaminated place longer than necessary. Kirk trailed the team, one hand on his phaser (set to stun, but still). Spock fell into step beside him.

They passed the occasional depression in the sand, likely hiding humanoid remains of some kind, the occasional bloody marks. Kirk smelled death everywhere. It reeked. The decaying humanoid body was no less than a hundred pounds of flesh, exposed to every bacterium imaginable, and it smelled rotten as the dead returned to the earth from which all beings come. (Not Earth the planet, but earth the soil. Standard English was remarkably Terra-specific in that regard.)

The team was a mile from the site where they had beamed down before they found the first exposed body. It was, in life, an Earth human male in young adulthood He looked well-fed but dehydrated, if his receding skin and dry eye sockets were any indication. He was dressed in tan-colored loose robes, civilian clothes rather than a soldier’s uniform. The clothes were bloody He had been killed by a rock’s blow to the head.

Kirk saw the rock a few feet from the body. He knelt to check for a pulse, but recoiled immediately. The man was cold and he smelled. No less than 20 Earth hours dead, even in the desert climate so hostile to flesh-eating organisms. If he had had any food, it was no longer on the body.

“What kind of being could have done such things, Captain?” Spock asked quietly.

Kirk was silent for a long moment. “What do you mean to ask, Spock?”

“I mean that the man in the brig – Kyevic or Dadian or whoever he is – could not have killed all these people himself. This is the first body you have found, but there are others. Many others, if every shallow grave contains a body.”

“Well, drought or disease might have killed many,” Kirk said. “But if you’re trying to get a mental picture of a killer, a perpetrator, from my experience they look just like everybody else.”

Both of them were quiet as they trailed the team, going somewhere that Kirk could only assume was the main population center of Cygnus IX. If Spock was right, then it was the _former_ main population center of Cygnus IX.

“I’m not sure what would be worse,” Kirk said, breaking the silence. “If we find survivors or if we don’t.”

Spock blinked, baffled. “Elucidate, Captain?”

Kirk gave him a hollow look. “Would you have liked to live your life after being part of death like this?”

Spock paused, then said, “Do not envy the dead, Captain. They are beyond any experience we can understand. It is wiser to think about life as we know it.”

“Well, I’m not wise, Spock. I’m a hotheaded bastard.”

Silence. “That is a non sequitor, Captain. That you are hotheaded does not indicate wisdom or lack thereof in all cases and therefore your causal chain is logically invalid.”

Kirk had nothing with which to respond to that. There were more bodies, and no survivors. Four hours after he had beamed down to the planet, Kirk turned to Spock and said, “I am going to head back to the ship to interrogate Kyevic. You and the rest of the team keep looking for survivors.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Kirk commed the transport center. “Kirk to beam up.” He felt his molecules dissociate as he was transported back to the Enterprise.

Kirk managed to get from the transport center back to his office. Bones had left, on his desk, little red pills of sleep medication for that night. He commed the bridge, checking in on Sulu (fine) and the prisoner (asleep). So Kirk sat in his chair, staring at the ceiling, trying not to be overwhelmed by the memories, deciding to give the prisoner a bit of time to wake up before he interrogated the bastard.

So Kirk busied himself with hated _paperwork_ until he figured he had given the prisoner enough time to get himself together. Kirk wanted answers and he wanted them _now._

o0o0o

Six hours later, he was thoroughly disgusted. Kyevic denied that he was the mass murderer from Pegasus Minor, but Kirk did not press him on that; rather, Kirk pressed him on the deeds apparent on Cygnus IX as committed under the alias Nikolai Dadian.

The short story was this: a war of unification led to mass killings on both sides of civilians by soldiers. Kyevic’s forces won after many years of struggle, made longer and harder by Cygnus X supporting his opposition. The treaty negotiation was just that: to solidify his position.

All in all, the story was a very drab and boring one, except for being colored with blood on every page.

_But,_ Kirk reflected to himself _, Tarsus IV was that way. Famine and death and a megalomaniac deciding he knew best._

So he returned to his corners. He threw up in the bathroom, utterly nauseated, then took Bones’ pills and tried to sleep.


	4. Part 3

“We are war. Because we are soldiers. / I have burned all the cities, / strangled all the women, / brained all the children, / plundered all the land. / I have shot a million enemies, / laid waste the fields, destroyed the churches, / ravaged the souls of the inhabitants, / spilled the blood and tears of all the months. // I did it, all me. – I did / nothing. But I was a soldier.” – A Stranger to Myself, Willy Peter Reese

“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.” ― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

o0o0o

Kirk awoke with artificial sunlight streaming into his eyes. The most up-to-date of the fleet had these automatic lights built in in order to regulate the resident beings’ sense of time. It seems the early long-term space travelers developed psychosis when they were not exposed to light similar enough to their circadian rhythms. That the light was on – late morning, if it had been a natural sunlight on Earth – meant that Kirk had overslept. He swore fluently in Vulcan and pulled himself to his feet, reaching over to check the time.

_Shit, I was supposed to be on the bridge two hours ago! Why did my alarm not wake me up?_

Checking the alarm itself, he saw that it had been overridden by the CMO.

_Chief Medical Officer, my ass. A horse’s ass. Damn meddling bastard._

Kirk reached for his communicator and commed the medbay. “Captain to medbay.”

“Medbay receiving, Chapel speaking.”

“Nurse Chapel, can you please put Dr. McCoy on the line?”

“He is currently treating a security officer for a nasty reaction caused by exposure to a toxic plant. Should he comm you back when he is finished?”

Kirk sighed. The away team had already had enough time to get into trouble while he was asleep. “Sure, that’s fine. Thank you. Kirk out.”

He shaved and showered quickly and pulled on all his clothes but his shirt. For the first time in a long time, he let himself look at the blue tattooed numbers on his arm.

_I was a fool, a slave. I was a child but I knew better and I was complicit in it. I watched Orfil’s guts curl around his feet and I watched Stonn struggle to breathe as he was crushed to death and I was helpless to move when Kodos cut T’Lora’s throat oh god oh god I was covered in her blood it was all over the floor and the wall and my shirt but he he he he was clean of it Kodos did it and he looked clean –_

Kirk’s communicator beeped, but Kirk was too occupied emptying his already empty stomach into the toilet to answer it. The memories were nauseating at the best of times.

_I watched all of them die, all but one, and I never wanted to watch anyone die not ever again but Pike died right in front of me and his blood got all over my shirt just like T’Lora’s I couldn’t save him from Khan or Marcus it doesn’t matter he died and I watched it –_

The communicator beeped more insistently. Kirk was on the floor and too trapped in the memories to move, let alone answer the comm.

_There is no vengeance good enough to atone for the death of an innocent child and even though I still breathe the child I was is long dead and I still feel dead and part of me would like nothing better than to be dead and not have to bother being a real person anymore because life is pain and I have seen enough pain for a hundred lifetimes –_

Kirk dimly heard a pounding on his bathroom door. “Jim!” Bones’ disembodied voice said.

“Bones?” Kirk tried to pull himself off the floor but failed as vertigo hit him.

Bones got the door open and, seeing Kirk on the floor, swore, and then said, “Dammit, Jim, I told you to comm me if you had a panic attack.”

“First one,” Kirk managed to say, “since –“

“Harrumph.” Bones pulled Kirk to his feet, keeping an arm around him to make sure Kirk didn’t fall.

“Honest!” Kirk was trying to sound indignant, but what emerged was a whine.

“Uh-huh. Of course.” Bones got Kirk back into Kirk’s quarters and stuck him in a chair. He handed Kirk a cup of water and sat on the edge of Kirk’s bed. “What sparked this one?”

Kirk lifted an eyebrow and bared the numbers on his arm to Bones. “My shirt, please?”

Bones rolled his eyes and tossed the gold command shirt to Kirk. “As if you’re going to be on duty today.”

Kirk’s head got stuck in the neck opening of the shirt. “What! Bones –“

“Don’t “Bones” me, Jim. You had a panic attack not three minutes ago. You are _not_ fit to be on duty.”

“I was supposed to be on the bridge two hours ago!”

“You’re not going anywhere. Doctor’s orders.” Bones glared at Kirk. “I’m the only one who can issue a CMO order to render you unfit for command. I don’t want to do that. But you need a mental health day, or at least the rest of the morning – but two days would be better. You can do this willingly or unwillingly.”

Kirk frowned. He drank the water Bones had handed him gratefully. “How’d you know –“

“You wanted me to comm you back. You answer those damn things in the shower, so when you didn’t answer I knew something was wrong. Hell or high water you answer your communicator.” Bones frowned. “Why did you comm me?”

Kirk pointed at his alarm. “Why did you put the CMO override on that thing?”

“Because you needed to sleep after interviewing Dadian or Kyevic or whoever he is. And don’t worry, I talked to Sulu. He would like to get all the practice being captain that he can, so don’t worry about him.”

“You’re feeding his delusions of grandeur.” Kirk groaned. “Well, maybe not delusions. Sulu would make a great captain. Maybe Starfleet will let him have the Excelsior when it’s done in 2268.”

Bones laughed, then sobered. “Jim, what happened in there?”

Kirk glared at him. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Too bad.” Bones looked mulish. “Do I have to issue that CMO order?”

Kirk groaned again. “No.”

“Good. I don’t want to anyway. Too much paperwork. Now talk, Jim.”

Silence. Then: “All right.”

o0o0o

_Flashback: Late Fall/Early Winter 2246, Tarsus IV_

 Kodos kept his promise to Jim – partially. Jim was fed and housed as promised. For every day of service in Kodos’ house, Jim got to eat and live another day. But the others of that ragged band of children – they were not so lucky.

Marlena died soon after their capture. Having been kicked in the abdomen at that time, the injury proved fatal. It took her three days to turn gray, bleed out internally, and succumb to the pain.

Little Jerry was the first to be killed outright after T’Lora. Jim hadn’t been fast enough delivering a message, so he was asked – forced – to deliver another one to the cellblock guards. That message brought only death. One of the guards strangled Jerry with only his right hand. Jim watched the light in Jerry’s eyes go out. To the last Jerry had believed Jim would save him.

But Jim didn’t.

“Perhaps that message will give your feet wings,” Kodos had said. But Jim could not be fast enough or good enough.

And one day near the end of the year, Kevin escaped. The cell was in a basement, underground to keep it at a constant temperature and to provide security, but there was a window outside the cell.

Billy had been sleeping and had not seen where Kevin had gone, or how he had gotten out. It did not matter. Jim was ordered to bring him before Kodos.

Billy had hugged Jim tightly. “I’m scared, Jim.”

“I’m scared too, kiddo.”

“What are we going to do?”

Jim didn’t answer, just looked very, very sad. “I love you, kid, you know that.”

“I know.”

As they stood before Kodos, Jim lost his last shred of humanity, and everything he ever had to lose.

 “Billy will die for his failure, Jim,” Kodos had said. “Take care it doesn’t happen to you.”

And Jim had been made to watch, pinioned by a soldier twice his weight, as another strong soldier held Billy’s arms open. Billy screamed but it didn’t matter. A third man, with the single slash of a huge knife, opened up Billy’s chest cavity. Blood went everywhere. The tiny child’s heart was still beating when the soldier cut it out of him. Billy collapsed like a rag doll.

Billy had believed Jim would save the day. He had trusted Jim. And Jim had failed. There was nothing like being trusted in perfect faith and then letting that down.

The soldiers roasted Billy’s heart on a stick in the firepit, right in front of Jim. Jim wept freely.

“Shut up!” the one who had wielded the knife.

“Damn kid!” added the one who had held Billy.

Jim lost his lunch and his bowels. He could not even pretend that he had the strength to move out of the puddles of his own fluids. Here at the last, he had strength for nothing.

The soldiers left Jim alone after that. They had also left Billy’s bones in the fire. The tiny child’s head had been placed in the fire to cook the brain within the skull. Abandoned in flame, the flesh burned away and the very bone began to char. Flames leapt in the eye sockets. The teeth became coals. The cheekbones fractured.

And Jim promised vengeance.

It was hours, the rest of the day and the night, before Jim could find the strength to move. He rose, got water and cleaned himself up as best he could, but he still stank. With a sense of purpose, Jim walked right up to Kodos – it was morning by then, and the man was sitting alone in his office chair doing paperwork, of all things _paperwork_ – and said, very calmly, “I’m going to kill you.”

Kodos laughed a horrible madman’s laugh. “You’re not the first to have said it, boy.”

Jim launched himself at Kodos, hands latching around Kodos’ throat. The chair fell. Papers scattered. Kodos’ head hit the stone floor. Jim kept his grip around Kodos’ throat and began bashing the head into the floor. _Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam._

The light went out in Kodos’ eyes. His mouth and ears bled. The skull cracked like a softboiled egg.

Jim let go when he was _certain_ the man was dead and he was losing feeling in his hands. They weren’t even very bloody. Jim stole Kodos’ phaser, set it to “kill”, and walked out of the office.

“Hey, you,” one of the guards – very stupid guard, as his boss had just been killed on his watch – said to Jim. Jim didn’t care. He shot the guard with the phaser, killing him instantly, which was more than he deserved. Jim killed the other guard just as easily.

Jim returned to the room in which Billy had died and put the phaser in the fire with the remains. “I have avenged you, kiddo,” and then Jim cried. “I just wish I could have kept you alive.” The phaser burned with the stench of searing plastic, which was still a better smell than burnt human.

o0o0o

_The Present_

Kirk had had nothing in his stomach to lose as he finished this part of his tale. Bones, however, had eaten a very nice breakfast that now graced only the toilet bowl.

“You killed Kodos?” Bones asked in a choked voice.

“Yes.” Kirk’s eyes were damp.

If Bones hadn’t been sitting down, he might have fallen over. “I made you go to that class first year and _you had killed the man we were discussing_ ,” Bones sounded incredulous.

“Yes.”

Silence. Bones looked like he was going to throw up again. “I’m so sorry, Jim.”

Kirk was surprised. “You didn’t know. How could you have known? At that point Tarsus had been nearly ten years before. I had grown and put weight back on. Only if you had known what the tattoo meant would you have any reason to be sorry.”

“I didn’t understand its significance until you told me.” Bones raised a hand to his face. The man was crying. In the years he’d known both Bones and Spock, Kirk had seen _Spock_ cry more than Bones.

“Bones –“

“Don’t “Bones” me, Jim.” His voice was muffled behind his hand. “I am your physician and your friend and you never told me what you went through, because I never asked.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“I can feel sorry anyway, can’t I?”

Bones broke the silence after a few minutes of wordless weeping. “Have you ever written these memories down?”

Kirk shuddered. “No, and why would I want to? Telling them to you or Spock is bad enough.”

“Were there any other victims who survived Kodos’ house?”

“Yes. Kevin survived. Only he and I were survivors of that place.” _Others lived as perpetrators_ , Kirk did not say.

“How many people ever saw Kodos’ face and lived to talk about it later?”

“Only nine, including Kevin and myself.” Kirk’s eyes had a faraway look to them. “He would be twenty-four now.”

“Jim, why won’t you write down what you saw there?”

“Because I am ashamed of it!” Kirk yelled. “I couldn’t save Billy. I couldn’t save Jerry. I couldn’t save T’Lora. I watched them all die, Bones. I was a child myself _and I watched children die_. Why would I _ever_ want to perpetuate that memory in the galaxy? It is so much better if it dies with me.”

“You can’t mean that.” Bones was aghast.

“I can and I do.”

“But Jim –“

“Look, Bones, I have managed to have a life, which is more than I can say for the children in Kodos’ house. I am alive and I’m intent on living this life, such as I have it. Going back into the memories – well, the kid I was is dead. Kodos isn’t someone I can forgive, not yet, maybe not ever.” Kirk swallowed hard. “Even if I killed him myself.”

“I’m not asking you to forgive the bastard, Jim. I’m not even asking you to move on. But it’s important for –“

“What’s it important for, Bones? Who needs to know I lived when they all died? I can’t go back there. It’s a part of my life I wish never happened.”

“But it did happen!” Bones was vehement for reasons Kirk did not understand. “If you never tell the story, who will remember what happened to those children? Who will recall them in a century or two when the only remaining person who knew them – namely you – dies?”

“I already _did_ die, and thanks again for bringing me back. They were forgotten for the time I was technically dead and lo, the sky did not fall.”

They were interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Kirk hollered.

Spock entered. His otherwise impeccable away-team uniform was marred by dust coating his shoes.

“What happened on the away team this morning?” Kirk asked.

“Nabokov ran into a venomous plant. He will recover.”

“That’s a relief.”

Bones interrupted. “Spock, do you think Jim should write or otherwise record his memories of Tarsus IV?”

“Bones!”

“Shut it, Jim. Spock may not be my favorite being, but he is logical and his advice is always sound.”

Spock blinked at the backhanded compliment from the grumpy doctor. “Logically,” he began slowly, “Given the blessed rarity of such an experience, every living repository of memory – a survivor, in other words – is irreplaceably important. And, given that all known beings die, and few know the days of their death, it is logical to record that memory somehow before death puts the memory at remove.”

Kirk groaned. “Spock, I thought you would have been on my side.”

“I am on no one’s side, Captain. I might also add that such recording of memory can wait almost indefinitely, unless you plan on a near-death experience in the near future.”

 “Spock, don’t encourage him.”

“I do not mean to do so, Dr. McCoy. Even as I doubt the practical use of the Captain’s testimony, given that all the main perpetrators of that particular violence are dead or imprisoned, I believe very strongly that the Captain should record his memories.”

“Genocide is very old,” Kirk said. “And not likely to die anytime soon. As long as there have been beings, they have been killing each other, for reasons that may be logical, illogical, insane, or merely stupid. Any of the above. But there has been a wealth of information about genocide available since the 20th century on Earth. I fail to see what my child’s memories of Tarsus IV add to that burgeoning collection.”

“Do I sense a “why me”?” Bones interjected.

Kirk snorted.

“It’s not up to you to withhold your testimony from future generations, Jim.”

Kirk looked away from Bones and to Spock. The lack of expression on Spock’s face was hardly unusual, but if Bones had been illogical or wrong, Spock would have said so. Thus, Kirk had only one response. He had been, effectively, checkmated. “All right, you win. I will get out a videorecorder and tell the camera what happened to me. I’m a better speaker than writer.”

Bones looked relieved. Spock still had no expression, save for a half-raised Vulcan eyebrow that likely meant _well, finally._

“But,” Kirk continued, “That can wait until we’ve interviewed the man in the brig a bit further.”

Bones jumped to his feet. “I will put you under that CMO order, Jim!”

“Doctor, I do not have the required expertise with men who have committed this type of crime to conduct this interview alone,” Spock said.

Bones’ eyebrows frowned and his lips puckered, face mutinous.

“I’ll stay out of the interview room,” Kirk said. “I can give Spock advice through an earpiece, and you can watch me to make sure I don’t do anything stupid.”

“More work for me…” Bones thought it over. “But, you’ll do this with or without me even if I try to confine you to quarters.”

Kirk grinned hollowly. His first interview with this creep was bad enough. Maybe Spock would do better.

Bones went back to the medbay to ensure no one was going to die while he was watching Kirk. Kirk pulled his regulation shoes and socks on and combed his still-wet hair. Spock was watching him intently.

“What is it, Spock?”

“I find myself slightly confused, Captain. Why did you agree to record your memories of Tarsus IV so quickly?”

Kirk swore in old high Vulcan under his breath.

“I heard that, Captain.”

_Shit_.

“That phrase, however, does not help me understand your switch from reluctance to its opposite so quickly.”

Kirk was silent for a long moment. “Well, I have said I’ll do it, and I do mean it. But I said I’d do it to get Bones off my back, and because you’re right. Both of you. As much as I absolutely hate the idea.” Kirk pulled a face. “And recording it doesn’t mean I have to make it available immediately. It can be one of those things put with my personal dossier, _To Be Released Only After Death._ ”

Spock’s lips twitched. “Given your personal proclivities towards death, namely the –“ Spock’s expression faltered – “episode with the warp core, perhaps that dossier is irrelevant.”

Kirk swore again.

“How did you come by such a specific grasp of the ancient Vulcan language, Captain?”

“People forget I’m a genius rather easily when all they see is the skirt-chasing brash idiot captain,” he said. “I was treasurer for the xenolinguistics club at the Academy. Among other things.”

Spock blinked. “That explains much.”

“Quite. Now can we get a move on?”

o0o0o

Spock’s interview with Dadian, Kyevic, or whatever his true name actually was did go better than Kirk’s had, though that was a remarkably low bar to surpass. The half-Vulcan seemed to set the man on edge, and the cold mannerisms only creeped him out further. Kyevic blurted things out that he probably didn’t actually want to say. He seemed terrified that Spock was going to skip the talking pleasantries and touch him to perform a mind-meld.

Kirk stood in a room, two rooms over from Spock, watching the interview through a viewscreen. He was close to the action but at far enough remove to sate Bones’ urge to mollycoddle him.

On reflection, Kirk’s impression of Kyevic remained mostly unchanged (after he got the makeup removed, anyway). The man still reminded Kirk of a clean but tossed-away rag. He had ordered killings of Vulcans, any part-humans, anyone with a compromised immune system or a chronic medical condition, and any individual who got in his way.

_Kodos’ body looked like a tossed-away rag or a wet dirty sheet. A bloody sheet, after I’d cracked his skull and scrambled his brains on the stone floor._

Bones’ hand was on his arm. “Jim, you’re hyperventilating. Do you need a hypo?”

“No, I’m fine.” Kirk tried to get his breathing under control.

“ _Fine_ is not the F-word I was thinking regarding your attitude towards your health,” the doctor grumbled.

“I love you too, Bones.”

On the viewscreen, Spock rose and left the room. A few moments later he joined Kirk and Bones in the smaller space.

Kirk cleared his throat. “Well?”

“I believe it is logical that this man is indeed Anton Kyevic.” Spock brushed microscopic lint from his uniform shirt. “It is, however, utterly illogical for me to be this repulsed by the man. I perceive my intestines to be cramping around themselves, yet this is not physiologically possible.”

“You see why they call it a _gut feeling_ ,” Bones said.

Spock nodded curtly. “What was your impression of him, Captain?”

“Normal,” Kirk said, to Bones’ and Spock’s surprise.

“Normal? Jim, this man _killed people_.”

“And so have I,” Kirk said softly.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do. To elaborate, he struck me as entirely normal. Evil is normal. Didn’t we learn that from the transporter mishap when I was divided into my good half and my bad half?” Kirk swallowed. “Kyevic is normal. Just like all the other perpetrators I have seen.”

“Captain, elaborate?”

“I saw genocide on Tarsus IV. I know what perpetrators look like. They look like you or I.”

The three of them walked from the brig, leaving Kyevic in the able hands of Lieutenant Hendorff, in the direction of the captain’s quarters.

As they walked, Bones said, “He reminded me of the Khan situation.”

“In what way?” Spock asked.

“Khan was a horrible, creepy superhuman, don’t get me wrong.” Bones ran a hand through his hair. “But the real danger was Admiral Marcus, who looked like us, acted like us, and was capable of killing all of us with less compunction than we kill flies. Khan, horrible as he was, wasn’t the worst of the worst by any means.”

At that they were silent. When they reached quarters, Kirk sat on his bed and did paperwork under Bones’ supervision. Effectively restricted from active duty, he spent his whole day like that, except Bones went off to check on patients every hour or two.

By evening, Kirk was mentally exhausted. Bones returned from the trip to the medbay holding what was clearly a contraband bottle of alcohol.

“Brandy,” Bones said. “Apple brandy. We both need it.”

“Should I be worried you’re medicating me and yourself with alcohol?”

“Well, it’s a drug, why not medicate with it? As long as it’s used safely, anyway.”

Kirk and Bones laughed. Bones poured. Kirk’s shot glasses sure were getting in some use these past few days. Admittedly it would have been nice to take the brandy in more appropriate glasses, but Kirk had limited resources for this sort of thing.

Bones sat in his accustomed chair. After a long moment and some brandy, he asked, “Jim, how do you live after that?”

Kirk bobbled his glass and almost spilled the prized drink down his front. “Sorry?”

“After Tarsus IV. After getting to know men like Kyevic, like Kodos – after seeing humanity in its uttermost darkness. How do you live a real life after that? To borrow your words, how do you become a real person again?” Bones took a drink. “I’m feeling its nastiness secondhand, and I am thirty-five, and I’m not handling it as well as I’d like. You saw it up close, at thirteen, and you might not be the picture of emotional health but you’re functional. Hell, you’re thriving. Youngest starship captain in Starfleet history, even, beating the previous record by ten years.”

Kirk was silent for a while. He stared into the apple brandy as if it would give him answers.

_I live because I have no choice._

Judging by Bones’ shocked expression, Kirk had accidentally said that out loud.

o0o0o

_Flashback, Tarsus IV, Late Fall/Early Winter 2246_

Jim had run from Kodos’ house straight into the well-meaning arms of a Starfleet-affiliated relief agency. He was so exhausted he was just grateful for the aid. They put him up in a mobile hospital unit with a soft biobed and fluffy pillows. They fed him gelatin dessert and clear soup until his stomach could take more and better. They gave him medications so his growth would not be stunted by the year he spent hungry.

The net result was a thin, but not skeletal, blond child with bags under his eyes. The soup and the dessert helped him put weight back on. His hair grew well for the first time in a year. His hands no longer looked thin as chicken feet. In short, it was stifling, but it took Jim a long time for that to register.

He was still a prisoner, only now it was a gilded cage. He hadn’t told them his last name. The last thing he wanted was the outcry of being the son of George and Winona Kirk and being on Tarsus IV. Starfleet sent psychologists, whom Jim ignored. They even sent a Vulcan mind healer, who found Jim’s mind an inhospitable place.

All Jim wanted was to be left alone to grieve for the relatives he had watched die and the children whom he could not save.

Whenever the doctors came near him with hypos or pills he was wary, not just because they were unfamiliar adults but because when he had first arrived, he had been medicated, and he had been sensitive to some of the medications he had been given. Sensitive being the medical codeword for symptoms excluding anaphylactic shock but including nausea, vomiting, swelling of the extremities, and skin turning a rather violent shade of purple. Jim was not pleased.

He could not sleep. When he did sleep, he had violent nightmares, waking up screaming. Jim was allergic – _sensitive –_ to the particular kind of sedative the relief agency had brought with them. So, one night, after waking from a nightmare in the throes of a silent scream, he rose from his bed and padded over to the little bathroom to wash his face.

It was the first time he had looked in a mirror since he had run from Kodos’ men, months ago. He did not recognize himself. The person he saw in the mirror – that wasn’t the Jim he remembered stepping off that shuttle a year ago. The person he saw in the mirror was a half-dead looking old man in a child’s body. It was the same look Billy had had, and Jim knew it.

He would be upset about it, if he had had the energy to be upset. As it was, he felt – nothing. Hollow. He felt only the beating of his heart in his chest, the pulse of blood at the neck and wrist, the crinkle of sandiness at the corners of his eyes from sheer exhaustion. The only emotion he had, really, was panic – the blind panic of waking from a nightmare only to find that the nightmare was past but it had indeed happened in the living breathing waking world.

And what could he feel – only pain.

o0o0o

Bones was looking quite upset by the time Kirk told him about the hospital mistakes. And the more Kirk said, the more apoplectic Bones became.

“It was a struggle not to die, in those first few weeks after rescue,” Kirk said. His cheeks were slightly flushed from the brandy. “But, once it seemed Fate had determined I would live, yet again, I had to choose to live. Everyone I had ever known or cared about on Tarsus IV was dead. The people off-planet wanted nothing to do with me before they sent me there, let alone after the mass violence.

Bones refilled his glass and Kirk’s wordlessly.

“Once I was well again and didn’t look like a flashback to 1945 Europe, which took months, mind, it still took me a year to get off the damn rock. I spent the years 2248-2255 – from age 15 to age 22 – numbing myself to the pain of being alive while trying my damnedest to feel _something_. I deadened the pain with alcohol that tasted considerably worse than this brandy. I chased skirts, adrenaline highs, and generally fast living. I got into bar fights and played poker to keep me in booze. I was living _mindlessly_ , just to avoid the pain of remembering Billy and T’Lora and the others.”

Bones patted Kirk’s knee with the hand not holding his drink. The poor doctor was used to patching people up, it was true, but as a surgeon he much preferred the physical, the concrete, to the mind, which was abstract.

“Pike convinced me to join Starfleet when he dared me to save more lives than good old hero dad.” Kirk took a swallow of the brandy. “I grabbed that chance like the dying man I was. 22 and dying, can you imagine it, Bones? Dying on the inside. I’ve been doing that since I was thirteen on Tarsus IV. I saw death long before that warp core incident and I would have done – and still would do – absolutely anything to save the life of a person more important than a damaged survivor.”

“Which would be, in your view, everyone,” Bones sounded particularly melancholy.

“Yes.”

Kirk spoke again. “I’ll do anything to prove I earned that second chance to live.”

Bones gaped at him. “What a horrifically painful way to live.”

“It is.” Kirk raised his glass. “But, for that, there’s alcohol.”

“Jim,” Bones said gently, “You earned that second chance a thousand times over by now.”

 “I know,” he said, grimacing, “But knowing it and feeling it are two very different things. How many different ways can I pay the bystander’s debt for watching children die when I could not have saved them? Yet still I try. It is a compulsion.”

“You’ve never thought much of yourself.”

Kirk snorted. “Tell that to every girl who ever accused me of being a narcissistic prick.”

“Shut up and hear me out, you dumb asshole,” Bones shoved Kirk lightly in the shoulder.

“Fine, fine.”

“Anyway. You’ve never thought much of yourself. You project arrogance because it’s the only way you know how to function. You’re a capable leader, a certified genius, with an eidetic memory, and you happen to be well-spoken and kind. That you have a loyalty and bravery streak miles wide is certainly not something anyone can hold against you. But even for all that, all you can remember is Frank beating the crap out of you as a small child telling you that you were scum who had ruined your mother’s life.”

Kirk was horrified, but Bones was very near the mark with everything he had said.

“You’ve devoted your whole life after Tarsus with the same general aim in mind: to sate your survivor’s guilt once and for all. But it is not an urge that can be slaked that way, Jim.”

“I remember what Orfil told me, the day we were captured,” Kirk said softly. “I lived, and I have to live with myself for what I did to survive. I was evil’s _servant_ , Bones. Its sign is burned into my very flesh, a mechanistic mark forever etched on my human body. If I had died! – But the dead are dead, and that is an experience beyond anything I’ve ever known. Even now.”

“You lived,” Bones repeated. “And yes, you do have to live with yourself. You have to bear that you were forced to watch evil people kill good ones. That said, you survived Tarsus IV with your humanity intact. You served Kodos only reluctantly. And hell, you killed the man.”

“I served him all the same.” Kirk’s eyes were hollow. “I can’t describe to you the look in Billy’s eyes when he realized he was going to die, I wasn’t going to be able to save him, and the last thing he would ever know was going to be a knife piercing his chest cavity. I see that look in my mind’s eye every time we lose a man on this ship. I couldn’t save them and it was my job to do so.”

“Maybe,” Bones said. “But you can only blame yourself for the evil you did yourself. And you, Jim Kirk, for all your space-slut, man-whoring, bar-brawling ways, you are a good man. You are one of the best men I have ever known.” A small smile graced Bones’ face. “Who else would have agreed to room with crazy old me, especially after I threw up on them?”

The smile crept onto Kirk’s face. “Well, I’ve more than returned that particular favor.”

The two men sat in silence for a long time. If there had been a fireplace in Kirk’s quarters they might have been staring into it, both men lost in thought.

Bones rose. “I am going to go get some sleep,” he said. “You take more of those pills, you need them, and we’ll talk about you doing therapy some other time.”

“All right, Bones. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, old friend.”

Kirk got himself to his bed. He took the sleeping pill and he was out no much later than his head hit the pillow.

He also woke screaming, seeing Kodos’ face before him again and again, the light slowly dwindling from his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few notes on canonicity. Much of what I say about Tarsus IV is contradicted by some of the Shatner novels of the Star Trek universe. I am relying on TV and movie canon only.  
> The episode in which Kirk is split into his good and bad half is a 1st season The Original Series episode.  
> Regarding allergies and Kirk, I am guessing as I go along, but I have two logical premises: that allergies in great enough quantity or quality would exclude one from Starfleet as they exclude one from the armed forces of the United States. I also hold as a premise that Kirk is allergic to something based on his reaction to the Melvaran Mud Flea virus in Star Trek 2009.


	5. Epilogue

 “Auch wer das nicht begreift, was ihn, beruft, der sei bereit.“ – Rilke (even he who does not understand what summons him should be ready.)

o0o0o

Captain James Tiberius Kirk sat in full uniform in front of a videorecorder. He was alone in his office and he felt damned stupid, talking to the machine and only the machine. He was uncomfortable and disquieted. And so Kirk began to speak:

“Hello.” He licked his lips and took a deep breath. “My name is James Tiberius Kirk. I was born in 2233, in space, to George and Winona Kirk of Earth. My father died moments after I was born in an attempt to defeat a no-win scenario. Over my lifetime, my assessment of his attempt has changed. When I was small, I only knew my dad was dead and I had never known him, and my mom thought I looked just like him. When I was a teenager, for reasons that will become abundantly clear, I believed George Kirk was an idiot for dying the way he did and that he had lost. But as I have gotten older – and at the time of this recording I am twenty-eight years old – I have come to the realization that he beat the no-win scenario. He got what he wanted from his twelve minutes as the captain of the Kelvin: the continued survival of the people he cared about.”

Kirk paused to take a drink of water.

“Now, I do not know what my reputation will be, whenever someone decides to open this file and watch it. At the time of this recording, I am the captain of the Enterprise on the first Five Year Mission undertaken by Starfleet. Actually, I am in my office doing this rather than assisting, badly, with star mapping. I have the reputation of being a skirt-chasing hotheaded bastard, and anyone who said that of me would be more or less correct. I also was instrumental in the planet Earth’s continued existence after the events of 2258 and in the avoidance of war with the Klingons in the aftermath of the events of 2259. All this might be ancient history for you, of course.”

Kirk was feeling very stupid. What was the point of this, besides to get Bones off his back?

“I state my highly successful but less than impeccable record thus far, because anything you know of me is about to be cast in new light.” Kirk took a deep breath. “I survived Tarsus IV in 2246, and aside from being one of the nine survivors who could identify Kodos the Executioner, I was also the one who killed him.”

He had to pause, in order to breathe and not hyperventilate.

“I was sent to Tarsus IV to live with relatives for the year. I went from hell, living with my stepfather, to hell: starvation, privation, and murder. I survived, and I am ashamed that I survived when worthier people than I did not. I stole food to live. I ate rats, ferns, and possibly human flesh also. I did what was necessary to stay alive, and to keep the children with me alive. Of the seven of us, the last to hide successfully in the woods, only I and one other survived to liberation.

“I ran into the other survivor on my ship, earlier this week. Kevin Riley, Ensign. I’ve assigned him to Engineering, not that he likes it. Sorry for stating your name, Kevin, if you don’t like it I can bleep it out later. But I was…” Kirk paused. “I thought I might have been infuriated with him. His escape attempt led directly to the last of our fellows being murdered and cannibalized right in front of me. I thought also I might be overjoyed to see him again, to see him well and healthy after how starved we both were on Tarsus, but I wasn’t. I only felt sad. Sad because of what was taken from us so young. I was thirteen and Kevin was only eight in 2246.”

“So here I am. Narrating my story, my personal shame, for a camera. For an audience I will never know, for people who will never know me. Forget the legend of Captain Kirk, ladies and gentlemen, and meet the little boy Jim, who cracked a murderer’s skull on flagstone.”

And Kirk did tell the story, in full, fell detail. Winona Kirk’s abandonment. Frank’s beatings. Sam running away. That stupid car. Getting to Tarsus IV. Liking his aunt and her husband. They were nice to him. The hungry time. Being counted. Being tattooed against his will – and here he showed the blue marks to the camera – and running away. Finding every last one of those little kids he tried to save. Watching all of them die but Kevin. Killing Kodos. Recovering with Starfleet Medical. Kirk left nothing out. No stone unturned, no detail unsaid. He cried a lot – must’ve gone through a whole box of tissues. Blubbering on camera, what was the world coming to?

And, when all was said and done, he found he had one last thing to say to that same camera.

“What kind of happy ending can this Jim Kirk have?” he asked. “Can a man like me go off into the night like some old soldier, not to die but just to fade away? Maybe. You in the audience would know better my end than I, in this chair, on this wonderful ship. Can I have a nice quiet retirement someday? God that would be so boring! That’s not for me and I know it full well.” Kirk paused. “Maybe someone will take this skirt-chasing idiot and reform him into being something socially acceptable. But that person would have to recognize that the things that drive them crazy about me – my energy, my intellect, my drive to succeed at that no-win scenario, my arrogance and my charisma – are the things that make me a good captain, if not a good person.

“And that person would have to recognize that I have spent my whole life finding a better answer to the no-win scenario than my father did. By my living, I hope to whatever Powers that Be that I’ve proven my survival worth it.” Kirk felt the hollowness in his face. “I hope only that I have proven the universe right: that letting this wacko Jim Kirk live over and over and over again is for the net benefit of the universe.

“But, I have no proof of that. For now I’m the universe’s punching bag, and I am actually mostly okay with that. I just want to be the best captain I can be for as long as I can manage it, and then teach at the Academy until I drop dead. I think they’ll have me, after some convincing.”

With sudden awkwardness, he ended the self-interview with the only words that came to mind: “Kirk out.”

o0o0o

_The Future: 2296, Starfleet Academy, San Francisco, Earth_

The recording clicked, shuddered, and ended.

Watching it: a class of shiny new cadets in a military ethics class. The instructor was a lot more interesting than the man who had taught Jim Kirk all those years ago. Well, the instructor thought so, at least.

Said instructor rose to the podium, clicked the lights back on, and addressed his class. “Now, you have a unique opportunity here, class, to ask any questions you with of a survivor,” he chuckled, “who happens to be your professor.”

The class laughed. Kirk had managed to keep his “our-pal-the-captain” attitude long after he was promoted to Admiral in the 2260s. At age 63 he might not have been as thin as he once was and his hair was grayer, but he was as incorrigible as ever.

A person in the front row raised her hand. “Professor, it has been fifty years since the events on Tarsus IV. Not to say things like this get more acceptable with time, but why focus on this example of mass murder, rather than a more recent example?”

Kirk thought about it for a long moment. “Well, partly it is because I know this example well enough to use it in front of a bunch of smart cadets. But I do have another, less self-serving a reason: because this was one of the first off-world mass deaths in an Earth colony, and because issues of blame and guilt are more clear-cut than in most other cases. I use it as an example because, unfortunately, it’s a pretty good model for everything more recent than 2246.”

Another person raised his hand. “Professor, what long-term studies have been done on the effect of surviving mass violence?”

“On survivors of Tarsus IV, very few. There were simply too few survivors to work with. But many were done in the 20th and 21st centuries on Earth, and many have been done on the effects of the destruction of Vulcan in 2258, for example.”

With that, most of the cadets seemed to have had their questions answered and several had already left to go throw up. Kirk had not left out any details of his time in Kodos’ house. Cannibalism really got to some people’s nausea, it seems.

Kirk dismissed them and reminded them of the paper due next class on their emotional responses to survivor testimony (which was not entirely self-serving; he had tracked down and interviewed every survivor of Tarsus IV he could find over the course of ten years, starting in 2260). A person he recognized all too well – two people, actually – rose to greet him from the back of the room.

“Spock, Bones,” Kirk nodded a greeting.

“Admiral Kirk, you have become a remarkable teacher,” Spock said.

“You flatter me. And we’re all Admirals here – I’ll call you by your name if you call me by mine.”

“All right. Jim.”

“And if I ask you to call me Leonard, I bet you’ll just ignore me,” Bones hugged Kirk. “You’ve done wonders, Jim.”

“Thank you.”

“I must admit it does not get less nauseating for the retelling.”

“No, it really doesn’t.” Kirk felt green himself. He hated that video. He hated that it was a perfect piece of evidence and thus he couldn’t just ignore it, but he hated hearing himself narrate events that still hurt fifty years later. It was physically painful and it was exhausting.

“It was a particularly effective narrative tool, Jim,” Spock cut in. “Though I have to ask: how do you frame the no-win scenario, and what is your answer?”

Kirk chuckled. “Astute as ever, Spock. It’s been years, and this is what I have come up with: Life is not a winnable game. No one gets out of life alive. So I have only one answer: to cram as much living into my life as possible. As much crying, laughing, sorrowing, hurting, joying – as much of everything possible. We never know when we will be called to the stage to wave our audience goodbye.”

Bones put a hand to his chin. “And has it been fun, Jim?”

“I would rather ask,” Spock said, “did it make a difference?”

Kirk laughed again. “Yes, and yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you’ve enjoyed my little story. I only had a few notes here. Firstly: as a Holocaust historian I can tell you my ideas of human evil and Holocaust studies in general were influenced largely by the following books: Tim Snyder’s Bloodlands, Deborah Lipstadt’s The Eichmann Trial, Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men, and Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. I have met or corresponded with all of the above but Frankl, who died in 1997, and I have the highest regard for them personally as well as scholarly. I also owe a huge debt to my boss, Dr. Robert Ericksen, when I was a student at Pacific Lutheran University, and to my teacher, Robert Dunn, who has since retired to Florida. Secondly: I have based my James Kirk on the Kirk we saw in Star Trek 2009 and Star Trek Into Darkness, but there are large elements of the Kirk from The Original Series as well. If he seems out of character, it may be that my writing was just that off, or it was the weird mixture of these canons and two different ways Kirk speaks (Shatner was a Shakespearean actor before he went to Star Trek and I have not seen any information that said Pine has that kind of training. That leads to very different ways of saying lines; not better or worse, just different). Lastly: The conversations I have Bones/Spock have with Kirk are highly contrived. Actually getting a person to open up about a horrible experience takes more training or life experience than I have any understanding of, let alone any ability to write about. I know my limits. I have stuck to my limited knowledge and deep interest in Star Trek and genocide studies and I’m so grateful you went along for the ride.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel it is responsible to warn readers that this fic includes really horrible things, including but not limited to: starvation of civilians, summary execution of civilians, murder of children, murder by children, cannibalism, graphic depictions of murderous violence, tattooing against one's will, vomiting, incontinence and so on. It does not contain any sexual elements what-so-ever. There is no shipping (sorry, Spirk or McKirk fans) but there's also no rape. If you are looking for a happy fic, this does eventually get there, but that's not my main focus.
> 
> I have fudged the information available on Tarsus IV to make it historically believable. This kind of violence in this introduction actually happened, either in the Holocaust or during Stalin's period of violence in the Soviet Union, or both.


End file.
